A new study ranks JetBlue’s inflight wi-fi as the best in the industry. (Image: JetBlue)

How do the major U.S. airlines compare in their in-flight Internet service? That’s what the folks at HighSpeedInternet.com were wondering, so they studied Wi-Fi availability, speed and cost for the seven largest carriers to find out.

Capturing first place in their overall rankings was JetBlue, partly for its speed, but mainly for its cost: There is none.

“JetBlue is the only airline in America that offers free in-flight Wi-Fi,” HighSpeedInternet.com said. “Along with being the most affordable, JetBlue’s in-flight Wi-Fi is also among the fastest; it’s tied with Delta and Virgin America at 15 Mbps.”

Ranking second overall was Southwest, with a cost of just $8 a day for in-flight Internet and a speed of 10 Mbps. (Cheap, yes, but I hear that you get what you pay for with Southwest inflight wi-fi. I don’t fly SWA enough to know…do you? Comment below, please.)

Source: HighSpeedInternet.com

As for availability, Virgin America was tops, with Wi-Fi offered on 100 percent of its available seat-miles. Delta was second at 98 percent availability, followed by Southwest at 90 percent. Virgin America also had a speed of 15 Mbps, but its superior Wi-Fi comes at a high price — $25 a day, the most expensive in the industry, the study noted.

Virgin’s owner, Alaska Airlines, didn’t fare as well, with Wi-Fi available on just 75 percent of its capacity – the lowest of the seven airlines – and speed well behind Virgin America at 9.8 Mbps.

(We should note that as Alaska continues to integrate its operations with Virgin’s, it recently decided to overhaul their Wi-Fi products. Alaska said a few months ago that it plans to install Gogo’s 2Ku satellite-based broadband Wi-Fi in both its Boeing aircraft and its Airbus fleet — i.e., Virgin’s planes. Installations will start next year on Alaska 737s, and the whole job should be finished by 2020. Alaska also recently extended its free in-flight texting to Virgin’s aircraft as well.)

At the bottom of the company’s overall rankings was United, with availability of 85 percent, speed of 9.8 Mbps, and a cost of $20. United was just below American, which had similar numbers. HighSpeedInternet.com noted that Hawaiian, Spirit and Frontier Airlines don’t have in-flight Wi-Fi. As a frequent United flier, this finding surprised me— When the system is actually working, United’s inflight wi-fi is relatively fast and stable. But the problem is reliability– over the last year, I would estimate that United’s inflight wi-fi system was down on about 40% of my flights.

Also, with Gogo-equipped planes, speed varies based on the type of system installed on the plane. For example, 3,000 planes now have Gogo wi-fi, but only 500 of them have the speediest satellite-based product. (More on that here.)

Source: HighSpeedInternet.com

The rankings changed significantly in looking at the best Wi-Fi service for business travelers, with the assumption that the cost is irrelevant because the traveler’s employer will cover it. If that’s the case, HighSpeedInternet.com gives top honors to Virgin America for its top speed and 100 percent availability, followed by Delta and JetBlue.

In conducting their research, HighSpeedInternet.com staffers discovered that some of this information wasn’t as easy to find as they had thought.

“Some airlines don’t publish their in-flight Wi-Fi information. So, to get it, our team spent days contacting various departments at some of these airlines—hounding them via email, phone, and social media,” the company said. “We think airlines could go a long way to reduce consumer frustration by making this information more readily available.”

Any report on airline Wi-Fi quality and cost should also note that this is all subject to change in the months and years ahead as carriers continue to upgrade their products due to consumer demand. For instance, we just reported on how Gogo is shifting much of its in-flight Wi-Fi service from ground-based to satellite-based links, which will greatly increase speed and data capacity. And we also reported that Air Canada will soon make inflight wi-fi free for its elite level members.

Do you use inflight wi-fi much? How is the service on the airline you fly most? Does it align with these findings?

Will Southwest take on Hawaiian Airlines on inter-island routes? (Image: Jim Glab)

Now that Southwest Airlines has confirmed its intentions to start flying to Hawaii, probably in 2018, there are new reports that the carrier might initiate inter-island service there as well.

Southwest plans to use its new Boeing 737MAX aircraft — which have a longer range than earlier versions of the single-aisle plane — to begin flights from the West Coast. But the company also reportedly sees considerable market potential for flights between the islands. That would give new competition to Hawaiian Airlines (which is due to begin its own narrow-body service from the West Coast in January, using new Airbus A321neos to replace twin-aisle A330s and 767s).

A Hawaiian Airlines inter-island 717 (Image: Hawaiian Airlines)

There’s certainly room for some competition on inter-island routes. A quick look at an airline schedule guide shows that Hawaiian is the only listed jet operator on routes from Honolulu to Hilo and Kona on the Big Island, to Kahului on Maui, to Lihue on Kauai, and to Lanai. Hawaiian uses 123-passenger 717s on inter-island routes.

There has been a little competition from Island Air, which has just three turboprops, but that company filed for bankruptcy last month. And Kona-based Mokulele Airlines has a number of flights, but with nine-passenger single-engine Cessnas.

Hawaii is the only state where travel between major cities requires an airplane (boats take too long, and there are no bridges). And a lot of people take those trips.

Source: Google Maps

Only about 30 percent of passengers on inter-island flights are connecting from long-haul service to Hawaii, and the traffic on those intrastate routes is considerable: e.g., more than a million passengers a year between Honolulu and Maui – or 40 percent more than on the crowded Boston Logan-New York LaGuardia route.

One deterrent for Southwest could be the size of its 737s and whether there is sufficient demand to keep them operating full enough and frequently enough to turn a profit. SFGate.com has a good analysis of Southwest’s potential inter-island incursion.

Etihad ended its 777 flights from San Francisco to Abu Dhabi last month- now another city gets dropped (Photo: Peter Biaggi / SFO)

In international route developments, Etihad drops another U.S. gateway and blames American; El Al comes back to Miami; Southwest adds three Latin America/Caribbean destinations from Ft. Lauderdale; and there’s new service to Mexico from Delta/Aeromexico, Alaska, Volaris, Interjet and Viva Aerobus.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways continues to struggle in the U.S. market. Late last month, it ended its San Francisco route, and it recently announced plans to trim its Los Angeles schedule from seven flights a week to four from mid-January through April. And now the carrier said it will suspend its daily flights from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Abu Dhabi, effective March 25. The airline said the Texas route “will become commercially unsustainable following American Airlines’ unilateral decision to terminate its codeshare agreement ” with Etihad. Company officials said almost half the passengers on its DFW flights were connecting from AA domestic code-shares. Etihad said that depending on how its summer bookings go, “further changes” are possible in its U.S. route network.

El Al uses a 777-200 on new Miami flights. (Image: El Al)

Nine years ago, Israel’s El Al ended its Tel Aviv-Miami service — but now it’s back. Last week, El Al started flying the route once again, operating three flights a week with a 777-200. The Israeli carrier also flies from Tel Aviv to New York JFK, Newark, Los Angeles, Boston and Toronto.

Southwest continues to expand its international schedule from Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport, where earlier this year it opened an expansion of Terminal 1 to accommodate those flights. This week, Southwest started daily service to three new destinations from FLL –Providenciales in the Turks & Caicos; San Jose, Costa Rica; and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. At Houston Hobby, meanwhile, Southwest just announced plans to start service next June to Grand Cayman.

There’s lots of activity in the U.S.-Mexico market these days. Alaska Airlines, which started flying to Mexico City from San Francisco and Los Angeles in August, has now kicked off San Diego-MEX flights. Alaska partner SkyWest operates the daily flights with an E175.

Aeromexico just started Seattle-Mexico City 737 flights. (Image: San Jose Airport).

Meanwhile, Delta and Aeromexico continue to develop their joint venture partnership. They just opened up new daily service between Delta’s Atlanta hub and Queretaro, Mexico, flying the route with a two-class Aeromexico E190. And last week, Aeromexico launched service from Delta’s growing Seattle hub to Mexico City, using a 737-800 for the daily year-round flights.

Mexican carriers are also adding new service. Low-cost carrier InterJet is adding three routes out of Los Angeles International this month. On November 23, it will begin daily flights to Leon/Guanajuato (close to popular San Miguel de Allende) and three flights a week to Los Cabos, followed on November 24 by four weekly roundtrips from LAX to Puerto Vallarta. On December 19, Volaris will inaugurate weekly service from LAX to Acapulco. And on December 16, vivaAerobus plans to launch daily A320 flights between Mexico City and Las Vegas.

Finally, Southwest Airlines said it will expand service to Cancun on June 9 of next year by adding seasonal Saturday flights from Pittsburgh and Raleigh-Durham. That means that on Saturdays next summer, Southwest will be operating 27 flights to Cancun from 16 U.S. cities.

San Jose International welcomes a new 737 nonstop from Mexico City next summer. (Photo: SJC)

In recent international route developments, Aeromexico will add seasonal service at San Jose; Southwest drops plans for two Mexico markets; Air New Zealand brings a new aircraft to Houston; British Airways adds high-density 777 flights to Gatwick; United and Delta drop Europe flights while KLM adds one; American plans new code-shares to and within China; Etihad trims its Los Angeles schedule and terminates San Francisco service; and LATAM adds a Boston route.

Aeromexico, now a joint venture partner with Delta, plans to expand its presence at Mineta San Jose International next summer by offering seasonal flights to Mexico City. The carrier will use a 737-800 on the route, offering daily flights from June 1 through August 31. The southbound flight will depart SJC at 1:40 p.m. In July of this year, Aeromexico started service from San Jose to Guadalajara.

Speaking of Mexico City, Southwest Airlines has scaled back its plans to expand service to the Mexican capital. The Dallas Morning News reports that Southwest has changed its mind about adding new service to MEX from Los Angeles and Ft. Lauderdale next summer. The carrier has given up the slots at Mexico City that it had acquired for those routes, and DOT assigned them instead to VivaAerobus, a Mexican low-cost carrier. When Delta and Aeromexico won approval for their joint venture, they had to give up some slots at MEX, and Southwest picked up enough for four flights a day there, which it initially used to add two flights a day from Houston Hobby.

Premium economy seats on the new version of Air New Zealand’s 787-9.(Image: Air New Zealand)

The new Qantas 787-9 that starts flying from Melbourne to LAX in December won’t be the only new Dreamliner service from Down Under. Air New Zealand plans to deploy the newest version of its 787-9 on its two-year-old Auckland-Houston route in December. The Kiwi carrier also plans to boost frequencies on that route next year, from the current five weekly flights to six or seven from March 25 through October 27. The new Air New Zealand 787-9 increases capacity in the front of the plane, from 18 business class seats to 27 and from 21 premium economy seats to 33. The airline currently flies a 777-200 to Houston.

British Airways has been planning to introduce “high density” 777-200ERs on long-haul flights out of London Gatwick Airport, partly in response to low-cost interlopers like Norwegian, and its plans for those planes are starting to emerge. Unlike its existing 275-seat 777-200ERs, the new version will cram 336 seats into the planes, according to Routesonline.com – 32 in business class, 52 in premium economy and 252 in regular economy. BA plans to put the new version of the plane into service for one weekly flight between Orlando and Gatwick as of May 11, 2018, increasing to daily by October 6; one flight a week between Ft. Lauderdale and Gatwick starting September 13 of next year, increasing to three a week October 8; and daily service between New York JFK and Gatwick effective July 8 of next year.

Looking ahead to other transatlantic markets for 2018, United had been planning to offer seasonal service from Chicago O’Hare to Shannon, Ireland from late May through early September, but now it has canceled those plans. And Delta is giving up on its Newark-Amsterdam service – which operates four days a week this winter – as of March 23. However, Delta partner KLM will expand service between New York JFK and Amsterdam next year, adding a third flight six days a week effective March 26. In another development, Delta will code-share on daily A330-200 Alitalia flights from Rome to Delhi, India, effective October 29.

American’s customers will get access to new destinations on China Southern. (Image: China Southern)

American Airlines, which acquired a small equity stake in China Southern Airlines this year, is planning a substantial code-sharing program with that carrier, according to Air Transport World. It said AA has filed plans with the Transportation Department to put its AA code onto China Southern flights from San Francisco to Wuhan and to Guangzhou, as well as its New York JFK-Guangzhou service. The AA code would also go onto 14 China Southern routes from Beijing to other destinations in China. It didn’t say when the code-sharing is expected to begin. Last month, American moved its operations at Beijing’s airport from Terminal 3 to China Southern’s base at Terminal 2.

Etihad Airways plans to reduce its schedule between Los Angeles and Abu Dhabi this winter. From January 15 through April 30, it will trim frequencies from daily to four a week, switching aircraft on the route from a 777-200LR to a 777-300ER. (And don’t forget, as we reported last summer, Etihad will discontinue its San Francisco-Abu Dhabi service on October 29 after cutting it back earlier this year from daily frequencies to just three flights a week.)

To Latin America, LATAM has filed for regulatory approval to begin the first non-stop service between Boston and Sao Paulo, Brazil next summer, although a schedule and starting date haven’t yet been determined.

Southwest had a full load on its inaugural 737 MAX 8 flight. (Image: Southwest)

Two U.S. airlines have started to take delivery of the next generation of Boeing’s iconic 737 jetliner. One of them just started flying it in commercial service, and there is speculation that airline could use the plane to shake up the Hawaii market.

The aircraft is the 737 MAX. The two airlines are Southwest and American.

Southwest, the U.S. launch customer for the aircraft, put its first nine 737 MAX 8s into service this week. It expects to have 14 of them in operation by year’s end, and has placed firm orders for 200 of the new planes, including MAX 7s and MAX 8s.

The new Southwest 737 MAX 8s have 175 seats in a single-class configuration, offering 32 inches of pitch and the Boeing Sky interior with LED lighting sequences. Southwest’s existing 737-800s also have 175 seats and 31-32 inches of pitch, while its 737-700s have 143 seats and 31-inch pitch.

If the seat count is the same, what’s the difference between Southwest’s 737-800s and its new 737 MAX 8s (other than the new-plane smell)? The new aircraft are quieter, 14 percent more fuel-efficient and can fly 500 nautical miles farther than the -800s.

If you wind up on one of Southwest’s new MAX 8s, it will probably be by chance, because the airline plans to deploy them here and there on scores of routes over the next few months. You can see a full listing here.

The initial scheduled deployment of Southwest’s MAX 8s only mentions domestic routes, but the company’s executives have said they might use the aircraft’s longer range to begin service to Hawaii. They didn’t say when, but the financial publication Seeking Alpha said recently it believes “that Southwest is likely to enter the Hawaiian market by 2018, and a formal announcement could come at any time.”

If that happens, the publication said, it could usher in a major fare war on mainland-Hawaii routes. “We think the only reason that Southwest’s entry (to Hawaii) hasn’t already been announced is due to Hurricane Harvey,” the publication said.

Analysts noted that the new planes’ greater range could also allow Southwest to fly deeper into Latin America and even from the East Coast to northern Europe, a market where Norwegian has introduced the planes.

A 737 MAX 8 in American livery. (Image: Boeing)

American, meanwhile, took delivery of its first 737 MAX 8 from Boeing last week. It should receive four of the planes by year’s end, followed by 16 more next year and 20 in 2019. American will put the first aircraft into service on November 29 between Miami and New York LaGuardia. It has ordered a total of 100 737 MAX models from Boeing.

American’s version of the MAX 8 has 172 seats, but with three seating categories – 16 in first class, 30 in Main Cabin Extra and 126 in regular economy. By comparison, American has two versions of the 737-800, one with 160 seats in three classes and one with 154.

Earlier this year, American caused a stir when it said a few rows of economy on the new aircraft would have 29-inch pitch, a new low in legroom for a major U.S. carrier, and the rest would have 30-inch pitch. But after negative feedback from customers, the airline changed its mind and said all economy seats would offer 30-inch pitch, causing it to ditch one row of Main Cabin Extra in the planes. (That compares with 31-inch pitch on AA’s 737-800s.)

Fares have plummeted for fall and winter flights as airlines battle for Golden State (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

UPDATE: This fare sale expired at midnight Weds Sept 27. Roundtrip intra-California fares are now in the $100 range. Not bad, but not $57! As competition continues in the battle for the Golden State, we expect more fare sales like this during slower fall and winter months so stay tuned to TravelSkills.

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There’s a good old fashioned fare war happening in the California Corridor this week with roundtrip fares on several airlines as low as $51 on most NorCal-SoCal routes.

It appears that the war got started when Southwest Airlines deeply discounted round trips between its big Oakland hub and southern California cities. Spirit jumped in, too with its low fares and high fees.

Then it moved across the Bay to San Francisco and San Jose, where United and Alaska Air jumped into the fray in the battle for the Golden State.

Here’s how Southwest is pushing its sale which sparked a fare war in California

How low are we talking? Here are some examples- but there are so many that you need to check yourself. I’ve posted roundtrip fares, but the sale applies to one-way fares, too.

Note that these roundtrip fares are available on the morning of Sept 27 and subject to change:

Sacramento-Los Angeles, San Diego, Ontario, Burbank on Southwest or United $57

It appears that the $57 roundtrips are only available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Fares apply to flights now through mid-February. The are not available for peak holiday season flights. We found these fares on Southwest.com and Google Flights.

Note that the lowest United fares could be low-frills basic economy– awful, but acceptable for such short flights.

When roundtrip fares between SFO and LAX go below $100 round trip, it’s time to pay attention. But just $57 round trip? Wow. $57 is less that what many of us pay for a ride to or from the airport in Lyft, Uber or taxicab.

Will you take advantage of this sale? What’s the lowest fare you’ve ever seen in the California Corridor? Leave your comments below.

Is it possible to compare one airline’s elite status requirements and benefits to another’s? Most frequent travelers will usually devote their mile/point accumulation to the hometown airline they fly the most by default. But a new study takes a fresh look at elite status to see which airlines are the most generous.

And the overall winner – across three of the four status tiers – is Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan, according to ThePointsGuy.com, a specialist in travel loyalty programs.

How is it possible to compare the elite benefits of six airlines (Alaska, American, Delta, United, JetBlue and Southwest)? The site assigned various weights to all the categories of perks that come with elite status levels, ranging from 25 percent for in-flight perks like upgrades, preferred seats and free amenities to 5 percent for special reservations treatment (priority phone line and enhanced award availability). Also in the mix are airport perks, fee waivers, bonus earning potential, partner perks, flexibility of benefits and non-flying perks like crossover deals with hotel companies.

ThePointsGuy.com looked at all those elements tier by tier across the six airlines. For low-tier elites (based on 25,000 flight miles and $3,000 in spending), Alaska’s MVP status came in first, followed in order by American’s Advantage Gold, Delta’s Silver Medallion and United’s Premier Silver. (JetBlue and Southwest don’t have a comparable elite status at this level, the site noted.)

The site said the primary reason for Alaska’s high ranking is “the fact that Alaska still awards miles based on flying rather than spending.” Alaska MVP members get a 50 percent earning bonus on flights, or 12,500 miles – worth an estimated $237.50 – on 25,000 flight miles in a year. By contrast, the spending-based regimes at the Big Three return only 6,000 bonus miles on $3,000 in spending, worth an estimated $72 to $90 at the three airlines, the site estimated.

Benefits of AAdvantage Gold that put American in second place were priority security access and waiver of the $75 same-day standby fee and the $75 award-processing fee for short-notice award bookings for lowest-tier elites, the site said.

For mid-level elites (50,000 miles/$6,000), United came in second behind Alaska, followed by Delta, American, JetBlue and Southwest, in that order. Alaska’s MVP Gold status at this level provides a generous 100 percent earning bonus, well above its competitors. The site also gave kudos to Alaska MVP Gold and JetBlue Mosaic status for fee waivers on flight changes and cancellations. Part of the reason for United’s second-place showing was its offer of free Marriott Gold reciprocal status to its MileagePlus Premier Golds.

For high-tier elites (75,000 miles/$9,000), Delta came in second after Alaska by virtue of its superior in-flight perks like a longer upgrade window (120 hours before departure vs. 72 at others), free access to preferred seats and extra-legroom economy seats, and upgrades on award travel.

It’s only at the very highest tier level (125,000 miles/$15,000) that Alaska drops out of first place, although the status requirements aren’t as comparable at this level. In any case, the study gives first place to United’s Premier 1K for “consistently rewarding status across all categories” including enhanced award availability in both cabins, free drinks and snacks on board and 12 upgrades (six regional and six global).

You can read the full report here, and along with an interactive feature that lets you input your own mileage and spending, along with the importance you assign to various benefits, to see which elite program is best for you.

Which airline elite level program works best for you? Why? Please leave your comments below.

Looking north to the Hollywood sign from the 14th floor of the Kimpton Everly Hotel (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Booming Los Angeles has seen a bloom in new hotel construction in recent years. As readers may recall, I was there in June for the opening of the city’s tallest hotel– the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. (See our review)

Last week, I checked in to check out the brand new-from-the-ground-up, 216-room Kimpton Everly Hotel, located a few blocks uphill from the famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Plus I was there for a handful of meetings and to see other new hotels and hotspots.

The brand new Kimpton Everly is located uphill from the famous Hollywood & Vine intersection (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

What’s best about The Everly (aside from the fact that it’s a Kimpton, and only about six weeks old) is its location.

If like me, you have business meetings all over town, it’s perfectly positioned. Need to head up to the Valley for a healthy business lunch at Hugo’s in Studio City? Just jump on the 101 freeway– the entrance is a block away from the front door. Need to go downtown to the Convention Center or poke around DTLA? Just walk down to Hollywood and Vine and jump on the Metro Red Line.

Meeting with your agent for breakfast in West Hollywood (at Butcher, Baker, Cappuccino Maker) or lunch in Beverly Hills (at Jean-Georges)? Maybe you’ll get invited to have dinner with a member of the showy, private Soho House. Or a little late night fun at Giorgio’s at MMHMMM at the Standard hotel. Lyft or Uber is easy to call (about $12 with tip between Hollywood and WeHo)– just budget enough time to be stuck in the area’s famous traffic jams where a 15-minute ride can easily bloat into a 45-minute slog.

(I did all of the above packed into a busy three-day trip! See photos below.)

Kimpton Everly sits just north of Hollywood and Vine- Smack in the middle of everything (Image: Everly Hotel)

Rates at the Everly are decent for a four-star hotel in a good location– they start at around $259 per night and vary based on demand. (I accepted a media rate of $190 per night for my stay.)

What else did I like about this hotel? It’s full of tall windows, high ceilings and plenty of light. Which brings me to another big plus: the views! Wow! I stayed at the Everly for two nights. On the first night from the 9th floor I looked south over the cranes and construction of Hollywood and the W Hotel tower. On the second night from the 14th floor I looked north over Beachwood Canyon with the clearest view of the Hollywood sign I’ve ever had. Wow! So if you like views, be sure to ask for a room on a high floor.

There’s an outdoor pool on the fifth floor looking out over Hollywood, which gets southern exposure, perfect for picking up some rays- so pack your sunglasses.

Cool at the pool before morning fog burns off (Photo: Kimpton Everly)

The lobby is bright and lively, filled with mid century modern vibe, comfy furniture, a pool table and a big busy bar. It’s a nice place to spend a few hours in the late afternoon when the wine is on the house and tasty snacks are lined up on the bar.

Well designed, fun lobby bar space (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

As usual for most Kimpton hotels, the Everly gets all the little things right. Wi-fi is fast, easy to sign on and free for Karma members. Members also get a $10 “Raid the Bar” credit for mini bar purchases. In the bathroom, there are full sized bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower get that are plainly marked. Lights are bright and beds are covered in Frette linen.

Something new I saw on this trip– a new type of thermostat that has a haptic touch… when you push it to raise or lower the temperature, it vibrates. And thankfully, it felt like it was not motion sensitive, and did not turn off in the middle of the night. The only thing I did not like about the room set up was the sliding barn door to the bathroom— these are fine when traveling alone, but do a poor job blocking sounds and smells when someone else is in there!

I flew into Burbank and I had a rental car for this trip, which proved expensive (parking is $42 per night + tip) and a bit of a hassle as getting in and out of the entrance is a little counterintuitive.

Breakfast is a quick, easy and casual affair at the hotel’s perky Jane Q restaurant on the street level– great coffee (I just went for the drip variety, which is free for hotel guests) plus there’s plenty of pastries and egg dishes to choose from while taking in the view out onto the street.

For my morning walk around the ‘hood I headed down Argyle Avenue four blocks to Hollywood Boulevard to see the famous stars embedded into the sidewalk. Down there the neighborhood feels a bit sketchy. I was fine walking around there in the morning, but would probably avoid being on foot at night.

While there, I was lucky enough to have time to check out the spectacular new Waldorf-Astoria Beverly Hills (where rates start at about $600/night), located next door to the Beverly Hilton on the triangle where Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards intersect. While the lobby of the hotel is gorgeous, the real show is up on The Rooftop— take a ride up for lunch and soak up the spectacular views (of the city and the people watching).

Also new on the hot LA hotel scene is the recent opening of the 286-room Jeremy Hotel on Sunset Boulevard on the western edge of West Hollywood– it was first going to open as The James hotel, but that fell through and the showy property sat vacant for months. Now it’s the Jeremy, but not for long– word on the street is that the hotel will soon be the first West Coast outpost of Barry Sternlicht’s popular new One Hotels.

Plus, Kimpton is not done with LA yet… in a few months it will open the new 105-room La Peer Hotel between Santa Monica and Melrose in West Hollywood. Details here.

No photos are allowed inside the members-only Soho House so I had to grab this one from its website. It’s located on the top of an office building on Sunset Boulevard on the western edge of West Hollywood.

The latest outpost of the Jean-George Vongerichten empire at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills (Chris McGinnis)

A new analysis of award travel costs among U.S. airlines that base their loyalty programs on dollars spent shows some big changes in the past few years – with good news for Delta’s flyers and bad news for United’s.

The study by IdeaWorks Company and CarTrawler looked at how average reward travel prices paid in points/miles changed from 2013 to 2017. It found that the average reward price for a domestic roundtrip on Delta fell by 19.1 percent, from 28,964 miles to 23,443 — the result of “a genuine effort” by Delta to reduce award prices, IdeaWorks said. On United, however, the average price jumped by 28.7 percent, from 26,357 to 33,929.

The proportion of United domestic award flight queries priced at 25,000 miles or less dropped from 83 percent four years ago to 43 percent this year, the study found.

The price of American Airlines’ domestic award tickets fell by just 2.3 percent over the four-year period, from 31,071 miles to 30,357.

But reward travel prices on the Big Three were far higher than on the airlines that ranked first and second on the cost chart: The cost of a JetBlue flight inched up half a percent, from 15,774 TrueBlue points in 2014 to 15,849 this year. And for first-place Southwest, the price fell by less than a point, from 9,353 to 9,300 Rapid Rewards points.

Source: IdeaWorks

Why the big difference? “The pay-with-points method (JetBlue and Southwest) links reward prices to prevailing air fares,” IdeaWorks said. “Program members can seek out low reward prices on flights that have lower fares. Reward prices adjust to demand in the same way fares have since supersaver rates were introduced decades ago. The mileage-based method is far less precise and typically ranges from 25,000 to 50,000 miles for a roundtrip domestic US reward.” However, it added that the Big Three are now “embracing more graduated pricing methods which removes the predictability of the traditional 25,000-mile and 50,000-mile classic reward option.”

Besides costing the customer less for award flights, Southwest and JetBlue are also more generous for non-elite economy flyers, IdeaWorks noted, both providing six program points per dollar spent, vs. five miles per dollar for the Big Three.

The above analysis changes considerably for elite-level frequent flyers, the company said, because they accrue points/miles at a higher level. Thus “ultra-frequent travelers may realize better reward value” from United, Delta and American.

Alaska was not included in the study because it still bases its loyalty program on the traditional miles-flown method. IdeaWorks noted that the average price paid for reward travel on Alaska this year was 18,500 miles, which would have placed it third, after Southwest and JetBlue.

What’s been your experience when it comes to redeeming miles over the last year? Please leave your comments below.

Southwest Airlines is adding new San Jose routes next spring. (Image: Chris McGinnis)

We have a lot of airline route news to catch up on following our August break, so we’ll start with domestic developments. Southwest’s spring schedule additions include several new routes out of San Jose and Sacramento; Alaska also starts new service at San Jose; United will join Alaska in flying out of a new Pacific Northwest airport, and adds a seasonal ski market from San Francisco; American will start new service from Denver, and will put a wide-body on a San Francisco transcon route; Delta’s Salt Lake City hub gets a new spoke, and Las Vegas gets more Hawaii flights; JetBlue grows at Atlanta and Boston; Spirit adds a Las Vegas transcon route; and Frontier expands at San Antonio.

The battle for California is paying off for Golden State travelers with tons of new routes and low fares. Southwest Airlines last week unveiled plans for significant expansion in California next spring. On April 8, the airline will kick off new daily service from San Jose to Boise, St. Louis, Austin, Spokane and Houston Hobby, along with new daily flights from Sacramento to Austin and St. Louis. Southwest will follow that up on May 6 by launching new daily service to Orlando from both San Jose and Sacramento. Officials at SJC said Southwest will also expand existing routes there starting April 8, adding a second daily roundtrip to both Chicago Midway and Dallas Love Field, a fifth to Seattle, a sixth to Phoenix, and a fifth and sixth daily flight from SJC to Portland., along with new Sunday-only service to Albuquerque and New Orleans.

In Florida, Southwest on April 8 will add three daily roundtrips between Ft. Lauderdale and Jacksonville and daily non-stops between Milwaukee and Houston Hobby. On March 8, Southwest is due to discontinue its non-stop flights between Dallas Love Field and Milwaukee, and between Philadelphia and West Palm Beach, and will seasonally suspend service between Oakland-Tucson, Washington Reagan National-Ft. Myers, and Minneapolis/St. Paul-Ft. Lauderdale.

United will join Alaska in flying out of Washington State’s Paine Field next year. (Image: Alaska Airlines)

Travelers in San Francisco and Denver will get a new option for flights to the Seattle area next year with United’s announcement that it will add service from those cities to Paine Field, 23 miles north of Seattle. Starting in the fall of 2018, United said, it plans to start offering six flights a day from Paine to its SFO and DEN hubs. Last spring, Alaska Airlines announced plans to begin the first commercial airline service from Paine Field in the fall of next year, although it didn’t say which routes it would serve. In other route news, United will begin twice-weekly seasonal service on December 18 between San Francisco and Vail/Eagle, Colorado, with CRJ700s operated by SkyWest. Elsewhere, United/SkyWest on November 1 will begin service six days a week to Clarksburg, West Virginia, from both Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles with CRJ200s.

Speaking of Alaska Airlines, that carrier last week kicked off new routes at San Jose, adding daily flights to both Austin and Tucson, using the popular Embraer E175 regional jets. That gives Alaska 31 daily departures at SJC to 18 destinations.

SJC is expanding, adding two new gates (29 & 30) at the southern end of the Terminal B for use by Alaska Air (Image: SJC)

On October 5, American Airlines is planning to replace the A321 currently used on one of its daily Philadelphia-San Francisco flights (AA722/723) with a wide-body Airbus A330-200. The bigger plane is currently scheduled to keep flying the route through December 14. Next year, beginning June 7, American plans to operate a daily summer flight between Denver and New York JFK with a 737-800. In other news, The Dallas News reports that American will offer 2-4-2 premium economy seating on its Hawaii routes from Dallas/Ft. Worth, using retrofitted 777-200s. The roomier seats are available from DFW to Honolulu and Maui starting in December, and from DFW to Kona beginning next June.

On December 21, Delta plans to begin new daily service between its Salt Lake City hub and Milwaukee, using an E175 operated by SkyWest. Delta is also extending its planned Las Vegas-Honolulu 757 service, which was originally scheduled for daily holiday flights from December 21 to January 14. Now they will continue as Saturday-only service from January 15, increasing to three flights a week February 16.

JetBlue is adding three more Atlanta routes. (Image: Jim Glab)

JetBlue finally broke into the Atlanta market last March, when it started flying five times a day from ATL to its Boston focus city. And now JetBlue has plans to double its Atlanta presence by adding five more daily flights there. Effective March 8, 2018, JetBlue will start flying from Atlanta to New York JFK twice a day, to Ft. Lauderdale twice a day, and to Orlando once a day. Elsewhere, JetBlue announced it will begin new service between Boston and Syracuse on January 4, offering one daily roundtrip with an Embraer 190.

In the ultra-low-cost carrier arena, Spirit Airlines on November 9 will begin daily A320 service between Las Vegas and Newark. And Frontier Airlines will start operating four flights a week from San Antonio to Washington Dulles on October 6, followed by four a week between San Antonio and Ontario, California beginning October 13.

In recent airport developments, Los Angeles officials gave a green light to a couple of major projects on LAX’s north side; New York officials did the same for Delta’s LaGuardia reconstruction; JetBlue wants to expand its presence at New York JFK; ; CLEAR expands to another key Delta airport; Dallas/Ft. Worth is getting a facility you rarely find at an airport; and Boston gets a new passenger lounge.

The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners has voted to approve two major projects for the three terminals on the north side of LAX – work which will take several years. The first gives Delta the green light to proceed with a [much needed!] major overhaul of its new home in Terminals 2 and 3, as well as construction of a post-security connector to the Bradley International Terminal. The multi-billion-dollar T2/T3 project involves upgrades to the T2 concourse, and the demolition and rebuilding of the T3 concourse building, the southern portions of the T3 satellite, and the ticketing and baggage processing facilities. Commissioners also approved plans to build a so-called Terminal 1.5, a $490 million, six-level structure that will link T1 and T2 and will give Southwest Airlines more space at the airport for things like ticket counters, baggage claims and security screening. An airport official said these projects are “two of the keys to eventually connecting the entire airport beyond the security checkpoints.”

Rendering of Delta’s planned new home at LaGuardia. (Image: Delta)

In New York, meanwhile, the Port Authority’s board of commissioners has signed off on a new lease agreement for Delta at LaGuardia Airport that clears the way for the airline’s planned new 37-gate facilitythat represents the last piece of the airport’s massive, years-long reconstruction. Delta said work on its new $4 billion home at LGA will start in a matter of weeks. Construction started last year on other phases of the LGA rebuilding, which will give the airport new roadways and will move everything closer to the Grand Central Parkway. Delta said its new facility will use “flexibly sized gates” that can accommodate all the aircraft types in its fleet; the new terminal will have four concourses linked by a central check-in lobby, security checkpoint and baggage claim area. Concourses will be wider than the existing ones at LGA, and the Delta facility will provide 30 percent more space for concessions along with a new Delta Sky Club with a Sky Deck. (Now if Delta could only add nonstops between California and LGA!)

Over at New York’s JFK Airport, meanwhile, JetBlue said it is seeking Port Authority permission for a substantial expansion of its passenger facilities. JetBlue wants to grow beyond its current Terminal 5 home by developing new facilities on the empty space that used to be occupied by Terminal 6, which was demolished in 2011, and possibly redeveloping Terminal 7 (currently used by British Airways) as well. The airline said its JFK expansion plan would include “the addition of international gates for JetBlue and partner airlines” (is this another clue that JetBlue has transatlantic aspirations?), and would provide a “seamless connection to T5 and throughout the new facilities both on the landside and on the airside.”

CLEAR kiosks no longer require a card– only a fingerprint. (Image: CLEAR)

The latest airport to add CLEAR biometric screening lanes is Salt Lake City, which means that “23 of the busiest airports where Delta flies now feature CLEAR service,” the airline said. Delta is a part owner of CLEAR and has made it a priority to expand the service to its hub airports. Members of Delta’s SkyMiles program are offered membership discounts in CLEAR ($99 a year for general members, $79 for most elites and free for Diamond Medallions), which relies on biometric technology to verify members’ identities and lets them bypass the usual TSA lines to passenger screening.

You don’t often see a health clinic and pharmacy in an airport, but you will soon at Dallas/Ft. Worth. Code 3 Construction, a Texas-based company that specializes in these facilities, says construction is “well under way” on an Urgent Care Center and pharmacy in DFW’s Terminal D, to serve both passengers and airport employees. With four patient exam rooms and on-site x-ray and lab facilities, “It will provide convenient and superior treatment for acute illnesses such as dehydration, colds and flu, respiratory infections, lacerations, sprains and strains, work-related injuries and more,” the company said. Code 3 Construction will follow up the in-terminal facility by building an emergency room and urgent care facility in DFW’s Southgate Plaza, to treat more serious ailments and to provide 24-hour care.

Emirates’ new lounge at Boston Logan. (Image: Emirates)

Emirates is celebrating the grand opening of its 41st airport lounge, this one at Boston Logan. Located on the upper level of Terminal E overlooking Gate E-11, the $6.7 million Emirates lounge can accommodate up to 123 persons. It’s available to Emirates first class and business class passengers as well as Gold and Platinum members of its Skywards loyalty program. The new lounge has showers, a business center, free Wi-Fi, bar service, and a free hot and cold buffet. Passengers will be able to board their aircraft directly from the lounge, Emirates noted.

Airlines haul in billions from checked bag fees – but make more from loyalty programs (Image: Jim Glab)

Everyone knows that almost all airlines have been imposing new fees on passengers in recent years, but a new report shows what a huge impact those fees are having on their revenues. And for many airlines, the biggest “ancillary revenue” boost is coming from something you might not realize.

The latest annual study of airline ancillary revenues from IdeaWorks Company and Cartrawler, just out this week, shows that while low-cost carriers are more notorious for their fees, the big U.S. legacy airlines are the ones hauling in the most ancillary revenues.

In 2016, the report says, United’s ancillary revenues totaled a whopping $6.2 billion, while Delta hauled in $5.2 billion and American brought in $4.9 billion, followed by Southwest’s $2.8 billion.

But here’s the thing: The study included the sale of frequent flyer miles in its calculation of ancillary revenues. Miles are sold mostly to the big banks that issue the carriers’ credit cards. And for the Big Three, that accounted for roughly half their totals (48 percent at United, 52 percent at Delta and 43 percent at American). At Southwest, which still doesn’t charge checked bag or change fees, sale of miles accounted for 80 percent of ancillary revenues.

Another way to look at ancillary revenues is as a percentage of total revenues, and that’s where the ultra-low-cost carriers shine. In fact, as they refined and expanded their fee schedules for passengers – shifting from a low-cost to an ultra-low-cost model — those fees became even more important to the bottom line.

In 2016, the report said, ancillary revenues accounted for more than 46 percent of Spirit Airlines’ total revenues – up from 33 percent five years earlier. The change was even more dramatic at Frontier Airlines, which got just 7.7 percent of revenues from ancillary sources in 2011. In 2016, they accounted for 42 percent. Frontier switch to a ultra-low-cost business model in 2014 after it was acquired by new owners. Frontier’s average revenue per passenger of $115 includes $49 in ancillary revenue, the report noted.

“Worldwide, the a la carte approach long embraced by low cost carriers has been adopted by network airlines. Within the US, American, Delta, and United recently introduced basic economy fares (sometimes called seat-only fares) to compete with Frontier and Spirit. These fares reduce the product to a minimalist experience with fees charged for bags and early seat assignments, no elite upgrades, and a ban on flight changes. Yet when presented with higher fare, better service options, the majority of consumers opt to spend more,” the report noted.

In domestic route developments, JetBlue unveils the starting dates for expansion of routes where it offers its Mint front-cabin service; Southwest will add a new transcontinental route from San Diego; Delta expands at Boston; American adds service in several secondary markets; and Alaska deploys more three-class E175s.

JetBlue has announced another wave of expansion for its premium cabin Mint service. On January 4 of next year, JetBlue said, it will introduce Mint service with lie-flat bed-seats on two daily flights between Boston and Las Vegas, followed by two daily Mint flights between Boston and Seattle starting February 15, and one daily Mint-equipped roundtrip between New York JFK and Seattle beginning April 15, with a second to be added sometime later in the year. The airline also said it plans to add a fifth daily Mint flight between San Francisco and Boston, with an afternoon departure time from both cities; and an 11th daily LAX-JFK roundtrip, although it didn’t specify a start date for those extra frequencies.

Boston is the focal point of a growing market-share battle between Delta and JetBlue. Last month, Delta started twice-daily 757-200 service between Boston and San Francisco, and it recently announced two more new Boston routes. On October 1, Delta will start flying twice a day between Boston and Pittsburgh with CRJ-900s; and next February, it will add seasonal weekend service between Boston and New Orleans, with flights on Saturdays and Sundays through April 1. Speaking of New Orleans, Delta also plans to operate Saturday/Sunday serviceto the Big Easy from Seattlestarting February 10. And during the second week of January, 2018, Delta will operate twice-daily CRJ-900 flights between Sacramento and Las Vegasfor the Consumer Electronics Show.

Southwest is adding a new transcon route from San Diego. (Image: Jim Glab)

Southwest Airlines has set January 8 as the launch date for its newest transcontinental route. The carrier plans to begin daily service linking San Diego with Tampa. At the same time, Southwest will begin new weekend-only service linking Phoenix with Des Moines, Iowa, as well as weekend service between New York LaGuardia and Ft. Lauderdale.

American Airlines this month started flying on several new routes out of its Chicago O’Hare hub to secondary cities including Appleton, Wis.; Birmingham, Ala.; Boise, Idaho; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Greensboro, N.C.; and Greenville, S.C. The airline also started flying on a seasonal basis between O’Hare and Ontario, Calif. American also kicked off new daily service between Dallas/Ft. Worth-Spokane and between Miami-Omaha.

Alaska Airlines continues to deploy new Horizon Air E175s on its network. This week, it is putting the new planes onto three more routes: Portland-Dallas/Ft. Worth, Seattle-Fresno, and Seattle-San Luis Obispo. The planes have a three-class configuration with 12 first class seats, 16 in Alaska’s new Premium Class and 48 in the main cabin. The premium class seats will have a 34-inch pitch, vs. 36 to 38 inches in first and 31 inches in the main cabin. The planes will also have Wi-Fi, power outlets throughout, and free streaming entertainment.

A typical window seat in United’s new Polaris business class. (Image: United)

In international route developments, United will deploy more 777-300ERs with new Polaris cabins on routes from San Francisco and Newark; Etihad catches a break from the U.S. laptop ban; ANA adds a third daily Los Angeles flight; Asiana will fly a new A350 to San Francisco; South African Airways puts its newest aircraft on all its Washington D.C. flights; El Al will fly its new Dreamliner in a key U.S. market; and Southwest drops a pair of Cuba routes.

So far, United’s full-blown new Polaris business class with flat-bed passenger compartments is only available on its new Boeing 777-300ERs – and it doesn’t have many of them yet. But more are on the way, and the airline is gradually extending the new Polaris cabin to more routes.Routesonline.com reports that United’s latest schedule update shows the 777-300ERs going onto three more routes in the next few months: On September 6, the 777-300ER will replace the 747-400 on United’s San Francisco-Beijing route; on October 6, the new plane will take over SFO-Frankfurt, also from a 747-400; and on October 28, a 777-300ER will replace a 777-200ER on the Newark-Tokyo Narita route.

Last month, United put the new plane onto its SFO-Tokyo Narita route, and SFO-Taipei service is set to begin August 1. It also flies them from SFO to Hong Kong and from Newark to Tel Aviv.

Some bad news on the Polaris front: The new Polaris Lounge at SFO, which was first expected to open in mid 2017 will now open in “late 2017 or early 2018” according to a spokesperson. Stay tuned. (See our previous post about the Polaris lounge here.)

Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been threatening to expand its so-called laptop ban to more airports, it looks like the ban is actually getting smaller. DHS last week laid out new, tougher inspection and security standards for foreign airlines and airports to meet if they don’t want the ban extended to them, and one of the first to meet the new standards is Abu Dhabi-based Etihad. As a result, DHS said it has lifted the laptop ban for Etihad, and passengers can once again carry their personal electronic devices on board. The ban remains in place for non-stop flights to the U.S. from nine other Middle Eastern and North African airports.

Starting October 29, ANA plans to increase its schedule from Los Angeles International to Tokyo, citing “strong demand” in the market and “constant growth in the number of passengers.” The airline said it will increase its LAX-Tokyo Narita schedule from one flight a day to two; ANA also operates one daily roundtrip between LAX and Tokyo Haneda. The new Narita flight will offer a late-evening departure and will use a three-class 777-300ER.

Asiana will put a new A350 onto its San Francisco route. (Image: Airbus)

South Korea’s Asiana Airlines is planning some changes for its San Francisco-Seoul Incheon route. For one thing, instead of using a 777-200ER as previously planned, it will switch to a brand new Airbus A350-900XWB effective August 14. Then when its winter schedule kicks in on October 29, its SFO departure time will switch from daytime to late-evening (11:30 p.m.), making more connections possible at Incheon. The return flight will arrive in SFO in the afternoon.

Earlier this year, South African Airways started flying an Airbus A330-300 with its new Premium Business Class product three times a week between Washington Dulles and Johannesburg via a stop in Dakar, Senegal. Now the airline has increased Dulles service with the new plane to daily frequencies by deploying the A330-300 on its four weekly IAD-Johannesburg flights that operate via Accra, Ghana. The new business class seats recline 180 degrees and all of them offer direct aisle access, power/USB ports and on-demand entertainment systems. The aircraft’s economy section has also been upgraded.

Business class in El Al’s new 787-9 Dreamliner. (Image: El Al)

Israel’s El Al is a little late to the Dreamliner game, but it has set the schedule for deployment of its first 787-9s starting later this year. For U.S. passengers, El Al will put the plane into service six times a week beginning October 29 on its Newark-Tel Aviv route (the same route where United recently started flying its new 777-300ER), gradually increasing frequencies to 11 a week by next March. El Al will also deploy the 787-9 on its Tel Aviv-London Heathrow route starting September 12, and Tel Aviv-Hong Kong beginning March 18 of next year. El Al’s 787-9s will have a three-class configuration including a new premium economy class. Here’s a visual preview of the interiors.

The bloom is off the rose for all the new Cuba routes that U.S. carriers introduced some months ago. The latest pullback is from Southwest, which said it will discontinue its daily Ft. Lauderdale-Varadero and Ft. Lauderdale-Santa Clara, Cuba, service on September, and instead will focus on its Havana service. Southwest flies to Havana twice a day from Ft. Lauderdale and once a day from Tampa, and has applied for rights to a third daily FLL-Havana flight. The airline said it dropped the other two routes because its analysis “confirmed that there is not a clear path to sustainability serving these markets, particularly with the continuing prohibition in U.S. law on tourism to Cuba for American citizens.”

In domestic route developments, Southwest adds Cincinnati to its route map and adds service in several new California markets; American adds some regional routes and will put a wide-body on a SFO transcon; Delta adds more Comfort+ seats to regional aircraft; Alaska starts up its latest East Coast route; Spirit grows at Oakland; Frontier comes to Providence; and Air Canada pits a Dreamliner on a key SFO route.

Southwest Airlines this week added Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to its route map with an initial schedule of eight flights a day – five to Chicago Midway and three to Baltimore/Washington. At the same time, the airline’s route map eliminated Dayton, where Southwest had been running a few flights a day to Midway.

As the airline’s summer schedule kicks in this week, Southwest also inaugurated new non-stop service in several California markets, including San Francisco-Portland, San Jose-Reno, San Diego-Boise and San Diego-Salt Lake City. New seasonal summer routes active as of this week include Oakland-Newark, San Diego-Newark, San Diego-Spokane and San Diego-Indianapolis. Elsewhere, Southwest started daily service between Denver and Charleston, S.C.; weekend flights between Denver-Pensacola; and seasonal flights between Denver and Norfolk. At Nashville, Southwest kicked off new daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul and seasonal service to Seattle.

After all the hubbub about airlines putting flat-bed seating into the front cabins on more domestic routes – notably Boston-San Francisco – readers of Flyertalk discovered another entry into the fully-reclining transcon competition: An American Airlines listing for A330-200 service between San Francisco and its Philadelphia hubstarting in early October. Could this be just a seasonal redeployment of excess transatlantic aircraft, or a permanent thing?

American has new Eagle service at Billings and Medford. (Image: American Airlines)

Delta continues to roll out its Comfort+ extra-legroom economy seatingto more regional aircraft. Earlier this year, it finished installing the seats on its CRJ-200s, and now it has started selling Comfort+ on its E-175s and CRJ-900s. The extra-legroom seats are also now on sale for travel starting June 15 on Delta’s E-170 and CRJ-700 aircraft. “Delta remains engaged with distribution partners to allow Delta Comfort+ to be purchased through travel agents and in consumer direct shopping displays,” the airline said.

Alaska Airlines has started flying its newest transcontinental route. The carrier is offering daily seasonal non-stop service from Portland to Philadelphia, using a 737. The Portland-PHL flights will continue through August 26. It’s Alaska’s 58th destination from Portland.

Air Canada has deployed a new 787 Dreamliner between SFO and Toronto (Image: Air Canada)

There’s something new in the skies between San Francisco and Toronto : Air Canada has just put a 787-9 Dreamliner into service on one of its six daily flights in the market. It’s scheduled on the airline’s 11:55 a.m. departure from SFO and its 8:15 a.m. westbound flight from Toronto. See more about this beautiful bird here.

Spirit Airlines introduced a number of new domestic markets. (Image: Spirit Airlines)

Spirit Airlines has kicked off new seasonal service from Oakland International to Baltimore/Washington and to Detroit, along with seasonal flights between Detroit and Seattle. New year-round markets just introduced by the low-cost carrier include San Diego-Baltimore/Washington, Seattle-BWI, New Orleans-BWI, New Orleans-Cleveland and New Orleans-Orlando. Spirit has also added Pittsburgh to its route map, launching new daily flights to Dallas/Ft. Worth, Orlando, Las Vegas, Houston Bush Intercontinental and Los Angeles, along with three flights a week to Ft. Lauderdale and daily seasonal service to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Low-cost Frontier Airlines has announced some new routes starting in mid-August. The carrier will start flying out of Providence’s T.F. Green Airport on August 14 with daily flights to Denver and Orlando, and out of Islip, Long Island’s MacArthur Airport August 16 with daily service to Orlando.

British Airways Boeing 777 landing at Oakland International Airport (Photo: Port of Oakland)

Oakland International Airport today adds another transatlantic competitor as new low-cost Level begins Barcelona service. It’s the latest in a growing roster of international flights at OAK, and it makes us wonder how much the airport can handle in its current state.

The new service from Level – with a two-class, 314-passenger A330 flying the route three days a week – comes just five days ahead of new twice-weekly Oakland-Barcelona flights from Norwegian, which has settled on the East Bay airport as its preferred home in the Bay Area. (OAK-BCN fares started as low as $400 round trip, but are now running $500-$700 for peak summer season trips.)

Level’s parent, International Airlines Group (which owns British Airways and Iberia), has also settled on Oakland — as the gateway where it will fight back against the low-cost flights of Norwegian. At the end of March, British Airways started four weekly flights from Oakland to London Gatwick — a route that Norwegian has flown for more than a year, and will boost from three flights a week to four this fall.

Level is flying A330s from Oakland to Barcelona. (Image: IAG)

On the same day that BA launched those OAK-Gatwick flights, Norwegian started twice-weekly service from Oakland to Copenhagen; it already flies from OAK to Oslo and Stockholm.

Is your mind sufficiently boggled by all that?

That’s just part of the burgeoning international growth at Oakland. In addition:

Norwegian just announced plans to begin twice-weekly service next February from Oakland to Rome Fiumicino – the first Bay Area non-stops to Italy in many years. There is some speculation that IAG’s Level could decide to go head-to-head with Norwegian on that route as well.

Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris recently won rights to operate from Oakland to Mexico City, with service expected to begin by summer of 2018.

Norwegian flies Boeing 787 Dreamliners on its routes from Oakland to Europe.

With all the new transatlantic service, Oakland has surpassed San Diego to become California’s third-largest gateway to Europe. The airport is doing its part this year to give those carriers a boost: Through August 15, it is offering five free days of parking, worth $120, to travelers flying roundtrip to Europe.

But all that growth comes at a cost: We’ve been hearing some grousing from readers about long waiting times at Customs and Immigration at Oakland airport.

Here are some select quotes from emails sent from the plane waiting on the OAK tarmac from reader SS: Trapped w/babies on sweltering Southwest flight from Puerto Vallarta. Customs can’t handle our flight & another big Norwegian flight that came in. So we’re stuck on plane.

Later, SS wrote: There were TWO 200-300 passenger widebodies processed ahead of us. Norwegian Air & British Airways. Only four customs agents processing passengers when we arrived to customs- three for US citizens, and one for non-US. OAK clearly unprepared for this new level of international arrivals. Even customs hall wasn’t large enough to handle us well.

Emails like that make us wonder about the ability of OAK’s international terminal to handle all the growth (the airport recently reported that its overall passenger numbers during April jumped almost 13 percent year-over-year).

We reached out to airport spokesperson Keonnis Taylor about this, and she wrote: The events of last evening were partially the result of irregular operations. Southwest Airlines Flight 125 arrived 20 minutes early and the international arrival gates were occupied by other flights. Unfortunately, about the same time as this early arrival, a system-wide outage of CBP’s APC (Automated Passport Control) kiosks occurred. The outage, which was not limited to OAK, required all passengers arriving on international flights to be processed through Customs without the benefit of the APCs, which streamline the process otherwise fully conducted by its agents. This kiosk outage caused delays in passenger processing and, subsequently, a long period of waiting for other aircraft that had arrived, which were not able to access the International Arrivals Building until after previous international arrivals had deplaned all passengers.

Flight from HEL: Finnair rolled out VWs and surfboards at HEL to launch its new Helsinki-San Francisco flights today (Image: Finnair / Twitter)

In international route developments, Delta starts up Europe routes and teams with Aeromexico to add transborder markets; Finnair comes to San Francisco; Qatar delays the addition of a new U.S. gateway; Alitalia extends its Los Angeles schedule; Norwegian alters some U.S. schedules and boosts London frequencies; Southwest expands Mexico service this winter; United adds an Asian code-share; and Air Canada starts a new U.S. route.

Delta has started service on several seasonal routes to Europe. One new seasonal route this summer is Portland, Oregon to London Heathrow, now operating four days a week with a 767-300. Other new Delta seasonal routes to Europe include daily service from Boston to Dublin and from New York JFK to Glasgow (in addition to its JFK-Edinburgh service). Delta has also resumed seasonal daily flights from JFK to Berlin and to Lisbon. In other Europe news, Delta plans to scale back its Salt Lake City-London Heathrow route to seasonal status, discontinuing the flights from October 29 to March 23.

Meanwhile, Delta also announced plans to start selling its Comfort+ extra-legroom economy seating as a separate fare category on more international routes. The seats are now on sale for travel beginning September 20 on routes from North America to Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile; and to China and Hong Kong.

That new joint venture between Delta and Aeromexico has announced plans to start service on five new transborder routes sometime this fall, after they get government approval. The five routes, all to be operated by Aeromexico, include Atlanta-Merida, Atlanta-Queretaro, Los Angeles-Leon, Seattle-Mexico City and Portland-Mexico City. The joint venture will also add a second daily flight between LAX and Los Cabos, and a third between New York JFK and Cancun, both operated by Delta; and a second daily flight from Atlanta to both Leon and Guadalajara, both operated by Aeromexico. With the two airlines now operating as one in terms of scheduling and pricing, these changes could mean higher fares for travelers to Mexico – but the extra flights could also mean fewer connecting hassles at Mexico City’s congested airport.

Finally, Delta is adding more service to Southeast Asia – not on its own, but through new code-shares with transatlantic joint venture partner Air France. According to Routesonline.com, Delta’s code has gone onto Air France’s Paris CDG-Bangkok service, and will do the same October 3 on Air France’s Paris-Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam flight.

Finnair is using an A330 on its seasonal San Francisco route. (Image: Finnair)

San Francisco International’s newest transatlantic route is to Helsinki, Finland. Finnair this week introduced seasonal service from SFO to the Finnish capital, using an Airbus A330-300 to fly the route three times a week, departing SFO on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. The Helsinki flights will continue through September.

We reported a while ago that Qatar Airways was planning to add another U.S. gateway in early January with the addition of service between Doha, Qatar and Las Vegas. But the carrier’s latest schedule filings now show that launch date has been pushed back to June 1, 2018. Qatar still expects to fly the route four days a week with a 777-200LR.

It looks like Alitalia will turn its seasonal Los Angeles-Rome service into a year-round operation — almost. Alitalia, a member of Delta’s Skyteam alliance, filed a new schedule showing its LAX-Rome service will not end October 29 as previously planned, but will continue after that three times a week – at least until January 15, when it goes on hiatus until March 6.

We’ve reported previously on the big plans by Norwegian Air International to begin new low-fare service in June from the northeastern U.S. to various points in Europe using its brand-new, longer-range 737MAX 8 aircraft. But Boeing has warned the carrier of delays in delivering the new planes, so Norwegian has been scrambling to adjust its fleet plans. Instead of the new 737MAX 8s, the company now plans to substitute Norwegian Air Shuttle 737-800s for much of the summer on new service from Providence to Bergen, Norway; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Shannon, Cork and Dublin, Ireland, as well as service from Stewart Airport in Newburgh, N.Y. to Shannon, Dublin, Edinburgh and Bergen.

Meanwhile, Norwegian is also planning to increase frequencies on several U.S. routes to London Gatwick when its winter schedule kicks in on October 29. All the affected routes use 787-9s. Norwegian will boost Oakland-London service from three flights a week to four, while Los Angeles-LGW increases from five flights a week to daily service; Orlando-LGW goes from one a week to two; Ft. Lauderdale-LGW increases from three a week to four; and Boston-Gatwick from four a week to five.

Although Delta and Aeromexico are tightening their grip on the transborder market, other competitors are stepping up their game as well. Southwest Airlines’ winter schedule, effective November 5, shows an increase of its Houston Hobby-Mexico City schedule from three flights a day to four, while its weekly flights from Denver to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos both go to daily frequencies. On November 11, Southwest will kick off new weekly flights to Cancun from both Nashville and St. Louis. Interjet, the low-cost Mexican carrier, plans to boost its service between New York JFK and Mexico City from 18 flights a week to 25 starting June 15. And United on December 17 will introduce seasonal weekly flights (on Saturdays) between its Denver hub and Cozumel.

Air Canada has added a new destination from Denver. The carrier recently started Air Canada Express service twice a day from Denver to Vancouver, using a 75-passenger CRJ705.The schedule will drop back to once a day September 10.

Alaska Airlines will offer the first commercial service out of Paine Field next year. (Image: Alaska)

In domestic route developments, Alaska Airlines will start flying out of a new Seattle-area airport; JetBlue kicks off its newest transcontinental Mint route from San Francisco; Southwest adds some Milwaukee routes and drops one; Delta will enter a New England market from JFK; and Blackbird starts flying seaplanes from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe.

Travelers who live in Washington State’s northern Puget Sound region will get a new air travel option starting next year when Alaska Airlines begins operating out of Paine Field in Everett, Wash., also known as Snohomish County Airport. The carrier hasn’t yet announced routes, but said it expects to begin flying at Paine Field by the fall of 2018, operating nine flights a day with 737s and E175s. Alaska, which will be the first carrier to offer commercial service from Paine Field, said construction of a passenger terminal there will begin next month.

In other news, Alaska last week started service on the newest spoke from its Seattle hub, operating one daily 737 roundtrip to Indianapolis.

JetBlue’s front-cabin Mint service is expanding to more transcon routes. (Image: JetBlue)

JetBlue this week deployed a Mint-equipped A321 on another transcontinental route: San Francisco-Ft. Lauderdale. According to the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, advance-purchase one-way fares on the route are in the $599 range, but can be found as low as $499. Two months ago, JetBlue introduced Mint service on its Los Angeles-Ft. Lauderdale route, and more Mint expansion will come later this year, including San Diego-New York JFK, San Diego-Boston and Las Vegas-JFK.

Southwest Airlines will make some changes to its Milwaukee operations starting November 5. The carrier will begin new service in two markets: Milwaukee-Nashville, with two flights a day; and Milwaukee-Cleveland, with two daily flights Sunday-Friday and one on Saturdays. At the same time, Southwest will boost Milwaukee-Denver frequencies from three a day to four, and will add a second daily Milwaukee-St. Louis flight. However, Southwest’s two daily Milwaukee-Minneapolis flights will be eliminated.

Delta plans to add another spoke to its New York JFK hub later this year, according to Routesonline.com. On September 10, the carrier is planning to begin one daily roundtrip between JFK and Portland, Maine, operated as a Delta Connection flight by Endeavor Air with a CRJ-900.

Who needs an airport? Blackbird Air, which offers small-plane service on several intra-California routes from the Bay Area, will introduce something new and totally different this summer: seaplane service from Sausalito to Lake Tahoe. Or as the company puts it, “Take off on the bay and land in the lake.” Blackbird has a downloadable app that can be used to book the service, which it says will start June 16 with fares from $124.

The poll of more than 11,000 air travelers found that social media postings have become the “feedback tool of choice” for passengers. Some 21 percent of business travelers in the survey said they had posted a comment about their airline trip on social media, and so did 8 percent of leisure flyers. And almost three-quarters of all those comments were positive.

“When an airline responds to any social media post – whether it’s positive or negative – there is a noteworthy 121-point lift in passenger satisfaction” regarding that airline, J.D. Power said. The company rates airlines in its survey results on a 1,000-point scale.

It said that the social platform most commonly used by passengers is Facebook (81 percent), followed by Twitter (41 percent). Apparently the takeaway from these numbers is that customers really like to know that their airline listened to them and cared enough to reply. And they resent it when they’re ignored.

Besides having their posts ignored, there are a couple of other things that really bug travelers, the survey found. One is insufficient overhead bin space, cited by 14 percent of respondents who said they had ”an issue” with this. And when they do, their overall satisfaction level with the airline drops by 82 points.

“The problem is inversely related to age, as travelers in younger generations are more likely to experience a problem with overhead storage than are older travelers,” J.D. Power noted (possibly because older travelers have learned through bitter experience what will fit and what won’t).

The other thing is getting bumped from a flight. The levels of involuntary denied boardings have reached “historic lows,” J.D. Power observed, but when they do happen, “they have the greatest negative influence on overall satisfaction.”

Speaking of overall satisfaction, you’d think all the publicity these days about shrinking seat pitch, passenger misbehavior, fights with flight attendants, overcrowded planes and gate areas, etc. would mean a significant drop in passengers’ happiness with the air travel experience.

But J.D. Power found just the opposite: Overall satisfaction with the airlines in the latest survey jumped by 30 points over the previous year, to 756 points, “continuing a trend of steady performance increases that began in 2013.”

The company divides airlines into “traditional” and “low-cost,” although those divisions aren’t what they used to be. The highest-rated “traditional” airline was Alaska (for the tenth year in a row) with a score of 765, followed by Delta at 758. Ranking highest among “low-cost” carriers was Southwest at 807, closely followed by JetBlue at 803.

Boston will get new Delta Connection service to four cities. (Image: SkyWest)

In domestic route developments, Delta and JetBlue both announce more service out of Boston; United expands Basic Economy to more routes; Virgin America starts flying new A321neos; Alaska adds a pair of Seattle markets; Southwest adds service at Sacramento; and American grows at Santa Rosa and Charlotte.

Boston travelers are the beneficiaries of an ongoing battle for market share between Delta and JetBlue. In the latest round, Delta unveiled new or expanded service on several BOS routes, in addition to its previously announced plans to start Boston-San Francisco flights on June 8. The carrier said its summer schedule this year will include new mainline service from Boston to Austin, along with new Delta Connection flights to Kansas City, Jacksonville, Buffalo and Norfolk. And on September 10, Delta will add a second daily roundtrip between Boston and Nashville.

And there’s more to come next winter: Delta said effective December 21, its Boston-West Palm Beach and BOS-Ft. Myers service will increase from weekend-only to daily, and Boston-Ft. Lauderdale will increase from weekends-only to twice-daily. The expanded schedule will give Delta 12 new destinations out of Boston since November of last year.

A few days later, JetBlue announced its own expansion plans for Boston-Florida routes, including the addition of one more seasonal daily roundtrip from Boston to Jacksonville, to Palm Beach and to Ft. Myers. JetBlue had already announced that it will lay on a fourth daily Boston-Los Angeles Mint roundtrip in October, and will start Boston-San Diego Mint service in December. At Ft. Lauderdale, meanwhile, JetBlue said it will begin a daily roundtrip to Salt Lake City beginning November 16.

Lie-flat front cabin seating on a Delta 757-200. (Image: Delta)

Speaking of Delta, we noticed a couple of unusual entries on Routesonline.com, which tracks all airlines’ filings of new routes and service changes. Routesonline said Delta plans to put a 757-200 with flat-bed Delta One seats into service on one of its daily Boston-Minneapolis flights starting January 3 of next year. And from this month through October, Delta will use the same aircraft on one of its three daily New York JFK-Philadelphia flights; the other two still use Endeavor Air regional jets. Are these domestic legs of international flights? Any ideas, readers?

When United started offering bare-bones Basic Economy fares earlier this year, it did so mainly on routes between Minneapolis-St. Paul and its major hubs. But now United has started selling the ultra-low, no-frills fares in more than 100 domestic markets, mainly from its hubs to leisure destinations and to other hubs, for travel beginning May 9. That includes routes like Newark-Orlando, Chicago-Denver, Washington Dulles-Orlando, Denver-Houston, San Francisco-Orlando and Chicago-Ft. Lauderdale. We’ve even heard they are in markets without ultra-low-cost-carriers such as LAX-SFO.

An Airbus A321neo in Virgin America livery. (Image: Virgin America)

Although it’s now technically part of Alaska Airlines Group, Virgin America remains a separate brand and operating unit with its own new aircraft deliveries. And over the next several weeks, Virgin will put its newest aircraft type into service – the Airbus A321neo. (The neo stands for New Engine Option.) The company said the new A321neos – it has ordered 10 of them – will have 185 seats. That will make it the largest in Virgin’s fleet; its current A320s have 146-149 seats, while its A319s have 119. The first A321neo will go into service May 31 between San Francisco and Washington Reagan National, and the second will start flying June 14 between SFO and New York JFK.

Speaking of Alaska Airlines, it recently started service on a pair of new routes out of its Seattle hub. That includes one daily roundtrip from Seattle to San Luis Obispo and one between Seattle and Wichita. Both routes are operated by SkyWest with 76-seat, three-class E175s.

Southwest Airlines is growing at Sacramento. Besides new twice-daily flights between Sacramento and Long Beach starting August 1, the airline will also start daily Sacramento-Spokane service on the same date. And on June 5, Southwest will add more frequencies in two other markets, boosting its Sacramento-Seattle schedule to as many as six flights a day, and increasing Sacramento-San Diego to as many as 11 a day.

American Airlines’ new service (started in February) between its Phoenix hub and Sonoma County, California’s Charles Schulz Airport in Santa Rosa has been filling up fast, so the carrier plans to add a second daily flight in the market starting July 5. The Santa Rosa flights use American Eagle 70-seat, two-class CRJ-700s. Elsewhere, American plans to add two new American Eagle routes out of its Charlotte hub on August 22, with two flights a day to Shreveport, La., and two a day to Toledo, Ohio. Both will use CRJ-200s operated by PSA Airlines.

It’s ironic that word leaked out this week about American Airlines’ plans to reduce seat pitch on some of its new single-aisle aircraft. Ironic because it’s the same week that the House Transportation Committee held hearings in Washington about U.S. airlines’ poor treatment of passengers– and the possibility of regulating airline seating was discussed.

CNN said it learned that American plans to stuff more seats into its new 737 MAX aircraft by reducing seat pitch from the standard 31 inches to a tight 29 inches on three rows in the economy cabin, and to 30 inches on the rest. The report said United Airlines “is considering a similar move.”

Our guess is that those three painful rows will be reserved for passengers who have booked the cheapest “basic economy” fares which the major airlines say they’ve introduced to compete with ultra low cost carriers. Since these will be the least desirable seats, and basic economy passengers are the last to board, they’ll end up in these seats by default. Another issue left up to speculation now is whether or not these seats will recline. I would hope not, but you never know.

The new configuration will give American 170 seats on the new planes, vs. 160 on existing 737-800s, although they will still offer first class and Main Cabin Extra (with 35-37 inch pitch) seating.

According to the CNN report, 40 of the 100 737 MAX aircraft ordered by American are expected to join the fleet by the end of 2019, and the airline is reportedly thinking about reconfiguring economy seating in its older 737-800s to match the new planes.

“As the big airlines match each other move for move, the risk is that 29 inches becomes the standard (seat pitch) for flying economy in the United States,” CNN said.

Frequent travelers know that an inch or two of more (or less) legroom can make a big difference in comfort, and if the legacy carriers were to reduce that number, they risk losing one of their main advantages over ultra-low-cost carriers.

Among the major airlines, seat pitches on single-aisle domestic aircraft generally range from 30 to 32 inches. Almost all airlines offer extra legroom seats with 34-36 inches of legroom for elite level members of frequent flyer programs or those who pay higher fares.

According to Seatguru.com, American offers 31-inch pitch on its 737-800s in economy class, and pitches of 30-31 inches on A319s, 31 on A320s and 31-32 on A321s. Delta’s economy pitch is 30-31 inches on 737-900s, and 31-32 inches on 737-800s and single-aisle Airbus planes. At United, 737-800s and -900s offer 30-31 inch pitch. Alaska’s 737-800s have 31-32 inches and 737-900s have from 31 to as much as 35 inches.

JetBlue appears to be the most generous, with economy class legroom ranging from 32-33 inches on A321s to 34 inches on A320s. Southwest’s standard pitch is 31 inches on 737-700s and 32-33 on 737-800s. At Virgin America, economy seat pitch is 32 inches on A319s and 320s.

By contrast, low-cost Spirit Airlines has a standard pitch of 28 inches across its fleet of single-aisle Airbus planes. Frontier Airlines’ economy seat pitch is 28-31 inches on A319s, 28-29 on A320s and 30-32 on A321s.

What do you think about the tighter configurations? Is the new “get what you pay for” mentality among major airlines going to far? Should seat pitch minimums be regulated by the feds?

Southwest had the lowest domestic award travel costs in a new study; Delta the most expensive international awards. (Image: Southwest Airlines)

Southwest Airlines’ Rapid Rewards program last week was named Program of the Year in the annual Freddie Awards, and a new study from MileCards.com suggests part of the reason why it won.

The study found that the cost of a Southwest domestic reward flight is lower by far than the other four largest airlines, and the availability of the lowest-cost “saver” awards is far greater on Southwest as well.

The study examined award flight costs on 100,000 date/route combinations for domestic economy travel from March 1 through October 31 of this year. It found that the average roundtrip cost of a Southwest award flight was just 13,629 miles; the comparable average mileage cost on the other four largest airlines ranged from 27,871 on Delta to 47,017 on American. (It should be noted that competitors’ mileage costs were lower than average on routes where they compete against Southwest, but still not as low as Southwest’s.)

Source: MileCards.com

As for the availability of the lowest-cost “saver” awards, MileCards.com found that Southwest had them on 95 percent of the days checked, vs. 76 percent for Delta, 62 percent for Alaska, and just 48 percent for United and American.

“The catch – Southwest doesn’t fly to Hawaii, or some popular award destinations in the mainland U.S. like Vail and Anchorage,” MileCards.com said. “Delta SkyMiles, which operates to more destinations, came in second with an average price of 27,871 miles across all routes studied, and 20,001 miles roundtrip on routes where Southwest operates flights.”

Speaking of Hawaii – one of the most popular award travel destinations – the study found the lowest-cost award flights on Alaska, averaging 54,618 roundtrip. Delta wasn’t far behind at 57,020. “American AAdvantage charges the most, with an average price of 97,375 miles, and only 6% of dates available at the ‘Saver’ level price of 45,000 miles on its own flights,” MileCards.com said. See the full Milecards study here.

Source: MileCards.com

Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program ties award travel costs to the prevailing air fares available at the time of travel, and thus doesn’t issue an award price chart. Delta took some criticism a few years ago when it stopped publishing a SkyMiles awards chart, but MileCards.com suggests that there are positive and negative aspects to Delta’s strategy.

“Now, domestic economy coach tickets (on Delta) can be found on many routes for just 10,000 miles roundtrip, and others at 15,000 miles roundtrip, while others cost more than the old 25,000 mile standard. By doing this, it has better flexibility to come closer to matching the point prices of Southwest, which doesn’t publish a menu of award prices,” MileCards said.

“The flip side is Delta has aggressively raised the prices of international business class awards that are not part of this study. A business class award to Europe on one of Delta’s partners now costs 170,000 miles roundtrip, up from 125,000 miles a year ago.”

As for United, the study suggests that MileagePlus members are better off saving their miles for international rather than domestic award flights because they’ll get more value out of them. The study praised American’s AAdvantage program for allowing members to change the dates of award travel for no fee, if it’s done 21 days in advance and costs the same.

But it criticized AAdvantage for having “the most inconsistent online search experience. Partner airlines like Alaska and Cathay Pacific are an important part of the value proposition of American miles and many are not readily visible when searching the AA.com website.” It added that AAdvantage “also causes headaches for international travelers by passing on large carrier surcharges from its primary partner to Europe, British Airways, which can add $700 or more onto a basic Economy Class award.”

The study turned up one interesting nugget about the best days to travel on award tickets: You’ll find the best deals for flights on Tuesdays, with an average cost of 30,574 miles; the highest average costs were on Sundays at 41,332 miles.

What’s the best “deal” you’ve found using miles recently? The worst deal? Please leave your comments below.

Alaska Airlines officials said last week they had no intention of giving up Virgin America’s gates at Dallas’ close-in Love Field – even though Alaska already flies to Dallas/Ft. Worth International – and this week they explained why: They are planning a significant expansion of service at Love.

The company said it plans to add four new West Coast routes out of Love starting later this summer and into next year, and to keep most of the DAL routes that Virgin already has, although with some changes of aircraft.

On August 27, Alaska will begin twice-daily flights between Seattle and DAL, using a Virgin A320 for one of them and an E175 for the second. The airline will also use three-class E175s for the other new routes, including daily service from Portland to DAL starting August 28, along with San Diego-DAL and San Jose-DAL, both starting February 16.

Southwest, the dominant airline at Love Field, also dominates all four of those routes, with multiple daily flights in each market; and American does the same from DFW. Alaska currently flies to Seattle and Portland from DFW, and will continue to do so.

Alaska and Virgin America also plan on “streamlining the airlines’ route network at Love Field” with aircraft changes. This summer, the company will start replacing Virgin America mainline jets with E175s out of Love Field. The changeover is set for August 27 for the three daily DAL-New York LaGuardia flights, with a fourth frequency added October 28. On February 18, two daily DAL-Washington Reagan National flights will make the switch from mainline to E175s, with the third one doing the same March 11.

One additional tweak to Alaska/Virgin’s Love Field schedule: Service to Las Vegas will be dropped August 26. The company will continue operating Virgin’s current schedule of three daily flights from DAL to both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Alaska has ordered a number of new three-class E175s. (Image: Alaska Airlines)

Switching to E175s frees up mainline Virgin aircraft from Love Field to fly Alaska’s previously announced new routes from San Francisco to Philadelphia, New Orleans, Nashville, Indianapolis Raleigh-Durham and Kona, and new LAX-Philadelphia flights.

“Prior to merger, Virgin America lacked a regional aircraft to take advantage of mid-sized routes. The fuel-efficient E175 jet has the same amenities and features of a mainline jet and is perfectly suited for Love Field,” said John Kirby, Alaska’s vp-capacity planning.

Virgin America moved its Dallas flights from DFW to Love Field in 2014 after regulatory changes opened up the close-in airport to more long-distance flights beyond the states bordering Texas.

In domestic route developments, Alaska can’t seem to get enough transcontinental routes; Delta extends a new seating option to smaller regional jets; Southwest takes on another intra-California market; American drops a key Caribbean route but adds a Michigan link; and Frontier expands to Puerto Rico.

Alaska Airlines is getting into several new transcontinental markets thanks to its acquisition of Virgin America, and it has been adding some of its own, like the San Jose-Newark, Portland-Orlando and San Diego-Baltimore/Washington flights it started last month. But that’s not enough for Alaska: It just announced plans to add new daily transcon flights from Portland to New York JFK and from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. And it’s not quite a transcon, but Alaska also announced plans to start flying once a day from Portland to Detroit.

The Portland-Detroit service starts August 30, followed by one daily LAX-Philadelphia flight September 1 and one daily Portland-JFK roundtrip beginning November 6. All the eastbound flights on the new routes will be red-eyes. The two Portland routes will use 737s, while the LAX-Philadelphia route will use an Airbus from the A320 family (i.e., a Virgin America plane). LAX-Philadelphia was previously served by Virgin America from 2012 to 2014.

Major carriers have been transitioning their fleets away from smaller regional jets to the larger ones preferred by passengers. Delta still has some 50-seat CRJ-200s operated by Endeavor/SkyWest, and it just announced it has started selling its extra-legroom Comfort+ seating on those planes, effective for travel beginning May 1. With this enhancement, Delta said it “will now offer Delta Comfort+ on nearly all single-cabin delta Connection aircraft, in addition to its two-cabin aircraft.”

Delta’s announcement didn’t say how many Comfort+ seats the CRJ-200s would have, or how much extra pitch they would offer, or what would happen to seat pitch for the regular economy seats on those aircraft.

Southwest is starting service from Long Beach to Sacramento. (Image: Long Beach Airport)

Southwest Airlines, which started flying out of southern California’s Long Beach Airport last year with several flights a day to Oakland, has been eager to expand at Long Beach if only it could get more slots there. Well, it recently picked up a couple of slots given up by American, and said it will use them to begin twice-daily flights from Long Beach to Sacramento starting August 1.

American Airlines has been flying from New York JFK to San Juan, Puerto Rico for more than 45 years. But it has decided to give up that market on August 22, when it will eliminate its two daily flights on the route. AA still will fly to San Juan from several other hubs. Elsewhere, American Eagle has started up new service from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, operating 12 flights a week.

While American is cutting capacity to San Juan, Frontier Airlines is adding it. Frontier is due to begin daily flights from Philadelphia and Orlando to San Juan on June 11, operating one daily A321 roundtrip on each route.

Alaska Airlines will use 737-900s for new Mexico City flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

The U.S. Transportation Department has issued a tentative decision awarding Mexico City airport slots to six airlines, with U.S. carriers winning rights for new service to the Mexican capital from California, Florida and Texas.

The takeoff and landing slots at Mexico City became available after DOT required Delta and Aeromexico to give them up if they wanted antitrust immunity for their joint venture partnership. The government wanted the slots to go to low-cost airlines to counteract the increased market dominance that Delta and Aeromexico would gain from the joint venture.

Subject to agreement by Mexican government authorities and final DOT approval, the transfer of slots to new carriers will come in two phases. The first new services are expected to begin this summer, and the second phase should take effect before summer of 2018.

In the first phase, Alaska Airlines was a big winner, gaining tentative approval for everything it requested. The slot awards will let it begin flying to MEX once a day from San Francisco, once a day from San Diego, and twice a day from Los Angeles International. Alaska said it will use 737-900ERs for the SFO and LAX service, and regional jets from San Diego. Schedules will be announced after final approvals, Alaska said.

Also in the first phase, JetBlue won enough slots to operate two daily roundtrips from Orlando and two from Ft. Lauderdale. And Southwest received slots for two daily flights from Houston Hobby.

Mexican carriers in the first phase include Volaris, which won slots for daily service to Mexico City from Los Angeles, San Antonio and New York JFK. Interjet also got a slot pair for JFK-Mexico City service, and VivaAerobus won rights to a daily roundtrip between MEX and Las Vegas.

Slot awards in the second phase will give Southwest one daily roundtrip between Ft. Lauderdale and MEX and one between LAX and MEX. JetBlue will get slots for two daily roundtrips between LAX and MEX. Volaris is the big winner in the second phase, with slots that will allow new roundtrips from MEX to Denver, Washington Dulles, San Jose, Oakland, Ontario and Chicago O’Hare. VivaAerobus will get rights to two daily flights from MEX to New York JFK.

Have you been to Mexico City before? To me it’s one of the best places to go in North America- great food, robust cultural offerings, cool hotel scene… what about you?

Burbank’s airport may be small, but with a name change, a new terminal and an increasing roster of flights, it could be a viable alternative to Los Angeles International for a growing number of passengers.

Located northwest of downtown Burbank, the city’s Bob Hope Airport is about the same distance from Beverly Hills as LAX is. It’s even closer to Hollywood, and hence its new name, which was approved last spring and will soon appear on airport signage: Hollywood Burbank Airport.

Actually, it was called Hollywood Burbank Airport before 1978, and then was renamed Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport. In 2003, it was renamed for Bob Hope. But since that actor’s name didn’t say anything about where the airport is located, officials decided a geographic reference was needed once again. And Hollywood Burbank probably has more cachet than Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena.

The little airport is gaining traction among business travelers as Los Angeles International becomes more congested and more bogged down with massive construction projects. It’s also closer to the west side hotels that many road warriors prefer.

Passenger traffic during November 2016 was up more than 11 percent over the same month a year earlier, and the airport was poised to show a 12-month total for the year of more than 4 million. Southwest dominates the airline roster at BUR, carrying about half the total passenger count.

The airport is also served by Alaska, American, JetBlue, Delta and United. Route options in the California Corridor are the strongest at BUR, with Southwest flying to San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento. United also flies BUR-SFO, and Alaska Airlines is due to launch three daily roundtrips between BUR and San Jose in mid-March. Small-jet operator JetSuite X also started operating at Burbank last year, with service to San Jose and to Concord, CA in the East Bay area. United has recently up-gauged some of its DEN-BUR and SFO-BUR flights from regional jets to mainline, according to Live & Let’s Fly.

Burbank has attracted nonstop flights from as far away as New York-JFK (JetBlue), and Austin, TX. Alaska flies in from Seattle and Portland. Delta used to offer a convenient nonstop from Atlanta.

Southwest will add new service from Burbank to Salt Lake City next month, a route already served by Delta. Service is also available to Seattle on Alaska and American; to Portland on Southwest, Delta, American and Alaska; to Phoenix on American and Southwest; and to Denver on Southwest and United. JetBlue offers a red-eye from BUR to New York JFK, the airport’s only transcontinental non-stop.

The airport is planning for future growth with a new terminal. Last fall, voters approved construction of a 14-gate terminal that is farther from the runways than the existing facility, which will be torn down after the new one opens. Design and construction of the $400 million terminal is expected to take place from 2018 to 2022.

Readers: Do you consider Burbank a viable alternative to LAX? What do you consider Burbank’s advantages and/or drawbacks?

American plans to use a 777-200 on its LAX-Beijing route if it ever gets slots from the service. (Image: AA)

In international route developments, American tries to save LAX-Beijing service; Air AsiaX sets its first U.S. route; Southwest starts Oakland-Mexico flights; Airberlin gets aircraft for more U.S. flights and ends a code-share partnership; South African Airways brings a new aircraft with an improved business class to its Washington Dulles route; United expands its Newark-London schedule; and Volaris comes to Miami.

We reported a few weeks ago that American Airlines’ plan to begin daily Los Angeles-Beijing service had hit a big snag because China wouldn’t give it any slots at Beijing’s Capital International Airport. American has been facing a March 16 deadline set by the U.S. Transportation Department to start flying the route, but now it has asked DOT for a one-year extension. AA said in its filing that it has been in regular contact with Chinese aviation officials about the slot situation, and that it is going to send a senior executive to China to discuss the matter. American told DOT it “fully expects” that its efforts will eventually be successful.

Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia X has settled on Honolulu as its first U.S. destination following the recent FAA decision to let it fly to this country. The carrier plans to fly four times a week from Kuala Lumpur to Honolulu via a two-hour stopover in Osaka, Japan, starting June 28. The airline has set introductory base fares as low as $112 each way to KL (including taxes and fees), or $673 for its flat-bed premium seats, with a purchase deadline of February 26.

Southwest Airlines this week kicked off its first international service out of OaklandInternational Airport, operating daily flights from OAK to both Puerto Vallarta and San Jose del Cabo/Los Cabos. The airport is expanding its International Arrivals Building this year in anticipation of a significant increase in international traffic, officials said. The work should be finished in the third quarter.

Airberlin has acquired three more Airbus A330-200s that it said will allow it to continue building up its service between the U.S. and its German hubs at Berlin and Dusseldorf. The airline announced a few months ago that it plans to begin new non-stops in May between Los Angeles-Berlin four times a week and San Francisco-Berlin three times a week. It already operates from both U.S. airports to Dusseldorf during the summer. It also said it would expand Miami and New York frequencies to Berlin and add Orlando-Dusseldorf service. And now Routesonline.com is reporting that Airberlin will extend some seasonal routes to year-round service starting this fall, including San Francisco-Berlin and SFO-Dusseldorf, both operating four times a week, as well as Orlando-Dusseldorf (five times a week) and Boston-Dusseldorf (four a week). In other news, American Airlines plans to end its code-sharing agreement with Airberlin effective March 26. Both are members of the Oneworld alliance.

The new business class on South African Airways’ A330-300. (Image: SAA)

South African Airways has started flying a new Airbus A330-300on its three weekly flights between Washington Dulles and Johannesburg via Dakar, Senegal, and in June it will add the new aircraft to its four weekly IAD-JNB flights that operate via Accra, Ghana. The SAA A330-300 includes an upgraded 46-seat business class product with flat-bed seats in a 1-2-1 layout, an improved on-demand entertainment system and power and USB ports at each seat. The aircraft has a 203-seat economy class with a 2-4-2 configuration.

United Airlines plans to add a sixth daily roundtrip to its Newark-London Heathrow route for the summer season, effective April 5 to October 28. The extra flight, departing EWR at 9:30 p.m. and arriving in London at 9:40 a.m., will use a two-class 767-300.

Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris this month added Miami Internationalto its route map, kicking off daily A320 service to Mexico City and four flights a week to Guadalajara.

Alaska Airlines wants to fly to Mexico City from San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. (Image: Alaska Air)

U.S. and Mexican airlines are competing for newly available access to Mexico City as Delta unveils plans to buy a much larger stake in Aeromexico.

The Transportation Department could soon announce new route authority for several carriers to Mexico City, using takeoff and landing slots that Aeromexico and Delta had to give up as a condition for approval of their joint venture. Alaska Airlines, JetBlue and Southwest are all in the running, along with Mexican low-cost carriers Volaris and VivaAerobus.

DOT plans to dole out 14 Mexico City slot pairs this year for U.S. service, concentrating on low-fare airlines to counteract the greater market power that antitrust immunity will give to the new Delta-Aeromexico joint venture.

Alaska Airlines, which has no service to the Mexican capital, has asked for authority to fly there twice a day from Los Angeles and once a day from San Francisco and San Diego. The SFO route and one of the LAX flights would use 737-900ERs; the others would use regional jets.

Mexico City’s international terminal (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Southwest wants authority to add a fourth daily Houston-MEX flight, and to move one of the other three flights to more convenient times. JetBlue wants slots that would allow it to move its MEX-Ft. Lauderdale and MEX-Orlando departures out of Mexico City to later times in the day (both currently leave before 6 a.m.), and to add second frequencies on both routes.

Mexican low-cost carriers VivaAerobus and Volaris also want slots. VivaAerobus wants to start flying to Oakland three days a week and to San Antonio four days a week, and to operate daily roundtrips to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Volaris wants to add new daily service to San Antonio and Washington D.C., and to add frequencies on its routes to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Delta wants to boost its stake in Aeromexico to 49 percent. (Image: Delta)

Meanwhile, Delta said this week it plans to buy up a much larger stake in Aeromexico. It currently holds 4.2 percent of that airline’s shares, and now said it will buy another 32 percent. It already holds options to buy 12.8 percent, so after the transaction is over, Delta will hold ownership or options on 49 percent of Aeromexico’s shares – the same as its equity stake in Virgin Atlantic. Delta and Virgin also have a joint venture with antitrust immunity, and have used it to closely coordinate schedules on transatlantic routes to the U.K.

“The tender offer and investment (in Aeromexico) will further strengthen the relationship that will be established when our joint cooperation agreement is implemented in the second quarter,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian.

Have you been to Mexico City lately? To me it’s one of the great sleeper cities of the Western Hemisphere. What about you?

Delta is growing again at Cincinnati. (Image: Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport)

In domestic route news, Delta will grow at Cincinnati, and keeps a key Dallas route for now; Southwest adds new routes from Long Beach and Ontario; Alaska enters a new market from Orange County; Frontier adds new service in 10 markets; and Spirit Airlines expands in the northeast.

For years, Delta has been scaling back operations at Cincinnati, which was once one of its hubs. But now the airline plans to grow there, citing 15 straight months of increasing passenger numbers. Delta said its plan calls for a capacity increase of 6 percent in total seats flown out of Cincinnati, including the addition of more frequencies in five key business markets, with additional daily flights from Cincinnati to Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Orlando and Toronto.

It will also upgrade Cincinnati-Denver service to mainline aircraft, and will offer first class seating on all flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Its seasonal winter service from Cincinnati to Ft. Myers will continue to operate daily through the summer, Delta said, and its seasonal Seattle flights will extend into the fall and spring. Finally, departures from CVG to Charlotte, Hartford, Newark and Philadelphia will be retimed to permit easy same-day trips out and back. The airline will have a total of 82 peak-day departures at Cincinnati this summer, to 35 destinations. (More Cincy news below!)

Dallas Love Field will keep Delta service to Atlanta — for now. (Photo: Chris McGinnis(

In other news, Delta has won a court victory – for now, at least – that allows it to keep operating five flights a day between Atlanta and Dallas Love Field. Southwest has been eager to kick Delta out of the Southwest gates it has been subleasing at DAL, in a court fight that is going into its third year. A district court has blocked Southwest from doing so until the matter goes to trial, and this week an appellate court upheld that ruling. So Delta’s DAL-ATL route is safe for the time being. Delta offers even more service between ATL and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Southwest Airlines is adding two new routes out of southern California. From Long Beach, Southwest just started operating twice-weekly 737-700 service to Denver. The flights operate on Saturdays and Sundays. Southwest has also kicked off new daily 737-700 flights between Ontario, California and Dallas Love Field.

Continuing its growth at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, Alaska Airlines has set an August 18 start for new service from SNA to Albuquerque. The flights will operate once a day, using Horizon Air E175 jets with 12 first class seats, 12 in premium class and 52 in regular economy. That’s the same date that Alaska will begin recently announced new service between Portland and Albuquerque.

Frontier Airlines plans to kick off new daily service between Cincinnati and New York LaGuardia on April 21, and it also announced new service with less-than-daily frequencies on nine other routes. From Austin, Frontier will begin four flights a week to Washington Dulles on April 21, and three a week to San Diego beginning April 23. Other new service from Cincinnati includes four flights a week to Minneapolis beginning April 21 and three a week to San Diego starting May 21. From Cleveland, Frontier will add four weekly flights to Charlotte on April 21, three a week to Minneapolis starting April 23, four a week to Houston Bush Intercontinental and four a week to San Diego, with both routes starting May 22. Also on the schedule is new service three days week between Chicago O’Hare and San Antonio starting April 23.

Spirit Airlines will add new service out of Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport to sun destinations this spring. On April 27, Spirit will launch daily service from Bradley to Orlando, and four flights a week to Myrtle Beach, S.C. On June 15, the airline will add daily service from Bradley to Ft. Lauderdale.

Emirates will begin the only year-round non-stops between the U.S. and Athens. (Image: Jim Glab)

In international route news, Emirates will introduce a new option between the U.S. and Europe; Japan Airlines adds a Haneda flight from New York; Southwest will serve an international market from San Diego; Delta drops a Taiwan route but adds new code-shares to Southeast Asia; Iberia starts selling a new premium economy class; and Qatar Airways sets a date for new Las Vegas flights.

Dubai-based Emirates is moving into a new U.S.-Europe market on March 12, when it plans to begin year-round daily service between Newark Liberty International and Athens; the flight continues to Dubai. The airline already flies between New York JFK and Dubai four times a day. Plus it flies nonstop between JFK and Milan. Emirates noted that there has been no year-round, non-stop service between the U.S. and Greece since 2012 (US carriers offer summer seasonal service only). Emirates fares for March-April flights start at $600 roundtrip. The carrier will serve the route with a 777-300ER that offers first class, business class and economy seating. Predictably, Delta, United and American said the announcement shows that Emirates is “flagrantly violating” the Open Skies agreement between the United Arab Emirates and the U.S., and said they will call on President Trump to block Emirates from the route. Will he? This should be interesting…

Japan Airlines will begin service between New York JFK and Tokyo’s close-in Haneda Airport. (Image: Haneda Airport)

Japan Airlines, which already flies twice a day between Tokyo Narita and New York JFK, said it will add a new daily non-stop between JFK and Tokyo’s close-in Haneda Airport beginning April 1. The company said the new service will give customers more connecting options to domestic flights in Japan via Haneda. The new route will use a coveted daytime international departure slot at Haneda. JAL also said it will change aircraft on its evening departure from Narita to JFK, switching from a 787-8 to a larger, four-class 777-300ER.

Southwest Airlines said it will begin its first international service from San Diego on April 25, when it launches new service to San Jose del Cabo/Los Cabos. Through January 26, Southwest is offering introductory fares on the new route starting at $104 one-way. Flights from Oakland to Cabo and Puerto Vallarta begin in February.

Delta’s route from Seattle to Tokyo Narita to Taiwan will be shortened after May 24 when the carrier reportedly plans to drop the Narita-Taiwan segment. Meanwhile, Routesonline.com reports that Delta will soon – perhaps as soon as this week – start to put its DL code onto partner KLM’s fights from Amsterdam to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

Iberia’s new Premium Economy seating. (Image: Iberia)

Iberia, a subsidiary of British Airways’ International Airlines Group and a member of the BA-American Airlines joint venture, announced the opening of reservations for its new long-haul Premium Economy seating class. The company said the new section is going into 21 of its aircraft, including eight A330-300s and 13 A340-600s; it will also be in A350-900s to be delivered after 2018. Premium Economy will be available for travel starting in May 2017 on Iberia’s routes to Madrid from New York and Chicago, starting in August for Miami-Madrid flights, and beginning in September for Boston-Madrid service. For bookings made before January 31, roundtrip fares start at $1,299. The new seating has increased recline, 37-inch pitch, greater seat width (19 inches) than regular economy, adjustable head and foot rests, 12-inch HD video screens (vs. 9 inches in economy), international Wi-Fi, a free drink, upgraded meal service, amenities kit, and allowance for two checked bags.

Qatar Airways has set January 8, 2018 as the launch date for its planned new service between Las Vegas and Doha, Qatar. Earlier, the airline has said it would start flying to Las Vegas in 2017, although it didn’t give a specific date. Qatar Airways plans to fly the Las Vegas route four times a week, using a 777-200LR. Las Vegas will the airline’s 11th U.S. gateway.

Southwest Airlines said its summer schedule, which starts June 4, will feature 22 new domestic and international routes, including some from the Bay Area as well as an expanded Caribbean network based at Ft. Lauderdale and a new presence at Cincinnati.

The company said it expects to increase its overall capacity this year by 3.5 percent (measured in available seat-miles) compared to 2016.

The airline’s new service on the West Coast includes three flights a day between San Francisco International-Portland and one a day between San Jose-Reno, along with seasonal non-stop service from Oakland to Newark Liberty International. At San Diego, Southwest will begin new daily flights to Boise and Salt Lake City, as well as seasonal service to Newark, Spokane and Indianapolis.

However, California’s Orange County Register reported that Southwest will trim its operations at John Wayne Airport due to a shift in capacity allocations among airlines there. Southwest this week ended its Orange County-Mexico City service, the newspaper said, and on January 14 it will eliminate flights from John Wayne to Austin, Kansas City, Portland, St. Louis and Seattle, followed by the end of Puerto Vallarta flights April 25.

At Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood, Southwest said it expects to cut the ribbon in early June on a new international concourse, designated Concourse A in Terminal 1. The facility will serve passengers on flights to eight international destinations, including four new ones: Montego Bay, Jamaica; Belize; Cancun, Mexico; and (subject to government approval) Grand Cayman. Southwest already flies from FLL to Nassau, Bahamas and the Cuban destinations of Havana, Varadero and Santa Clara.

Other new service from Ft. Lauderdale starting June 4 includes daily intra-Florida service to Orlando and daily flights to Washington Dulles and Philadelphia. Elsewhere in Florida, Southwest will kick off two daily non-stops between Tampa-New York LaGuardia and weekend flights between Pensacola and Denver.

Another big focus in Southwest’s summer schedule is Ohio, where it will begin service at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport with five flights a day to Chicago Midway and three a day to Baltimore/Washington. At Cleveland, the airline will add service to Atlanta and a second daily roundtrip to St. Louis. On the losing end of the schedule changes in Ohio are Dayton and Akron-Canton, where Southwest will terminate its service.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, Southwest’s summer schedule includes new service between Indianapolis-Newark twice a day and Nashville-Minneapolis once a day.

British Airways added San Jose-London service last spring with a new 787-9. (Image: British Airways)

Mineta San Jose International Airport is entering a real boom period, with both domestic and international airlines adding new routes right and left. With a growing regional population and a perfect location as the gateway to one of the world’s biggest technology hubs, Mineta San Jose is well positioned for continued growth into the 21st century.

That technology hub, of course, is Silicon Valley. Some of the world’s leading tech giants have offices no more than a dozen miles from SJC, including companies like Apple, Google, Symantec, Intel, Cisco, Adobe Systems, Netflix, SanDisk and many more. Not only is a trip to Mineta San Jose a fraction of the distance to San Francisco International Airport for these companies, but SJC’s smaller size makes the airport experience less hectic for passengers (through the first nine months of 2016, SJC boarded fewer than 4 million passengers, vs. almost 20 million at SFO).

With all those business travelers close by, and with its fast-growing, high-income population (San Jose is the 10th largest city in the U.S., and its metropolitan area has a median household income of $100,385), it’s not surprising that airlines are eager to accommodate that market.

Lufthansa uses an A340-300 on its new San Jose-Frankfurt route. (Image: BriYYZ/Wikimedia Commons)

In recent months, Mineta San Jose has attracted new routes from several international airlines, among them:

Lufthansa this past summer began flying non-stop to Frankfurt five times a week, using a 298-passenger, three-class A340-300. Through its Frankfurt hub, the German carrier offers connections to 100 cities in Europe and beyond.

British Airways last spring kicked off the first non-stop service from SJC to London Heathrow, using a brand-new, 216-passenger, four-class Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. It’s BA’s fourth destination in California, along with Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego.

In September, Air China launched a new transpacific route from SJC to Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, making San Jose the airline’s 10th North American gateway. The Chinese carrier uses a two-class, 237-seat Airbus A330-200 to fly the new route three days a week. SJC Aviation Director Kim Becker said the new route is expected to bring $65 million a year in economic investment to the San Jose area.

It’s not as far away, but another new international destination for SJC that started this year is Vancouver. Air Canada last spring kicked off twice-daily service between the two cities, using Bombardier CRJ-705s. Airport officials noted that Vancouver is sometimes called Silicon Valley North, since more than 200 Silicon Valley companies have offices there.

While the Lufthansa and British Airways flights represented SJC’s most recent transatlantic non-stops, it already offered transpacific service to Tokyo with All Nippon Airways (ANA) and to Beijing with Hainan Airlines.

Alaska, Southwest, United and JetBlue are all growing at SJC. (Image: Jim Glab)

New domestic routes are also proliferating. San Jose got another new transcontinental flight last month, when Southwest Airlines began a daily roundtrip to Baltimore/Washington International. At the same time, Southwest also started new twice-daily SJC-Salt Lake City service. And American Airlines this past summer added daily seasonal service between SJC and its Charlotte hub.

In March of next year, both Alaska Airlines and United Airlines are set to begin new daily non-stops from SJC to Newark Liberty International, and United will start twice-daily flights from SJC to its big Chicago O’Hare hub as well. In mid-May, Delta will add a third daily SJC-Atlanta flight.

Intra-California traffic is also booming, attracting new service in the California corridor. Last summer, Alaska Airlines started flying three times a day from SJC to both San Diego and Orange County’s John Wayne Airport. And on January 4, JetBlue will kick off SJC-Long Beach service, offering four daily roundtrips, followed by three daily Alaska Airlines flights to Burbank beginning in mid-March.

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Havana this week became the 100th point on JetBlue’s route map. (Image: JetBlue)

In international route developments, major U.S. carriers this week started service to Havana; Virgin Atlantic expands capacity out of Los Angeles; Qatar Airways will add another U.S. gateway; Norwegian increases service to Paris; two carriers add Vancouver routes to China, and one begins Las Vegas flights; San Francisco gets more capacity to Panama; and a Mexican low-cost carrier starts a Chicago route.

Major U.S. airlines this week are starting their long-planned new service to Havana, Cuba. American Airlines operated the first scheduled flight in 50 years, on its new Miami-Havana route. American also kicked off Havana service from its Charlotte hub this week. United Airlines started flying from its Newark hub to Havana, and this weekend it will add a weekly Saturday flight from Houston Bush Intercontinental to the Cuban capital. Havana became the 100th city on JetBlue’s route map, with the carrier starting service there this week from New York JFK, Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale.

Delta on December 1 is set to begin Havana flights from Atlanta, Miami and New York JFK. And there’s more to come, including Southwest Airlines service to Havana from Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale beginning December 12, and Alaska Airlines’ service from Los Angeles starting January 5. Despite all the hoopla about U.S. airlines returning to Cuba, there is still some uncertainty about whether or not the incoming Trump Administration will allow these flights – and other Obama-initiated liberalizations – to continue. Trump has threatened to end some or all of the new U.S.-Cuba initiatives unless he can get a better “deal” from the Cubans.

Delta SkyMiles members on the west coast will see more capacity to London Heathrow in 2017 as Delta joint venture partner Virgin Atlantic plans to add a third daily Los Angeles-LHR flight starting on May 1. All three of Virgin’s daily LAX-London flights will use three-class 787-9s. The three flights will depart LAX at 5:50 p.m., 6:30 p.m. (the new one) and 8:55 p.m. (Interesting to note that all of Virgin’s SFO-LHR flights are now on 787s, too.)

Qatar Airways, which started service from Doha to three new U.S. cities this year – Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles – said it plans to add Las Vegas as its 11th U.S. gateway in 2017, although it hasn’t yet announced a starting date or schedule details.

Norwegian plans to increase capacity between the U.S. and Paris in 2017. (Image: Norweigan)

According to Routesonline.com, Norwegian plans to add Orlando-Paris Charles de Gaulle as its newest transatlantic route in 2017, starting service July 31 with one 787 flight a week. The report said Norwegian will also increase capacity on other U.S. routes to Paris at the end of July, boosting Los Angeles-CDG frequencies from two a week to four; New York JFK-CDG from four a week to daily flights; and Ft. Lauderdale-CDG from one to two a week for the summer season.

December 2 is the launch date for Hainan Airlines’ new Las Vegas-Beijing route. The carrier will use a 787 to operate three flights a week. In other China developments, China Eastern Airlines is due to begin a new route between Vancouver and Nanjing three times a week beginning December 20, using an Airbus A330-200; it already flies from Vancouver to Shanghai and Kunming. And Hong Kong Airlines plans to launch daily Hong Kong-Vancouver flights – subject to government approvals – on June 30 as its first North American route.

At San Francisco International, Panama’s Copa Airlines — a Star Alliance member — has added a second daily roundtrip to Panama City with the unfortunate departure time of 12:38 a.m. from SFO. And at Chicago O’Hare, Mexican low-cost carrier Interjet has started flying to Mexico City. The airline is operating two flights a day with 150-seat Airbus A320s.

In domestic route developments, Delta will put new aircraft types on routes to San Francisco, Portland and San Diego; Alaska adds a couple of transcontinental markets; Southwest grows at Austin and Denver; and Spirit jumps into four Ohio-Florida markets.

Delta this year started to take delivery of new Airbus A321s, and according to Routesonline.com, customers in San Francisco and Portland will start to see them in 2017. The site said Delta’s advance schedule shows the new plane being introduced on a few of its many San Francisco-Atlanta flights starting in early March, and replacing the 737-900ER on its Portland-Detroit service starting in June. Delta said the A321s will feature big, pivoting overhead bins; next-generation seats in all three seating categories; large entertainment screens; USB and power ports; and LED lighting that changes with the phase of flight. (The A321 is the plane that seems to be replacing the aging Boeing 757, which is no longer being made.)

Meanwhile, following the recent news that JetBlue plans to extend its front-cabin Mint service onto the New York-San Diego route next August, thepointsguy.com reports that Delta apparently will be putting a 757 with front-cabin lie-flat seats onto one daily flight in the same market effective in June 2017. (Update: Airlineroute.net tells us that Delta had this aircraft on a SAN-JFK flight this past summer as well.) It’s the same aircraft type Delta uses for the lucrative JFK-San Francisco/Los Angeles routes. JetBlue has embarked on a long-term expansion of Mint service onto more transcon routes. Similarly, United has deployed a couple widebody B777-200s on SFO-BOS (but with standard first, not lie-flat) to take on JetBlue’s Mint expansion.

Speaking of San Diego and transcontinental routes, Alaska Airlines just announced a new one: The carrier said it will begin daily roundtrips between San Diego and Baltimore/Washington International starting March 15. The eastbound leg will be a red-eye. Alaska already flies to BWI from Los Angeles and Seattle, and its other San Diego transcons include Boston, Orlando, and new service to Newark starting next week. Last week, Alaska also kicked off a new daily roundtrip between Portland and Newark. Next spring, Alaska will start San Jose-Newark service as well. In other news, Alaska just began weekly seasonal service on Saturdays between Bellingham, Washington and Kona, Hawaii.

Southwest Airlines will begin new service on March 13 linking Kansas City with Austin, offering one daily roundtrip. Southwest also plans to expand its limited service between Denver and Albany, N.Y. The airline currently flies that route on weekends only, and just on a seasonal basis, but on April 25 it will make Denver-Albany a year-round route with daily flights.

Spirit Airlines has added Ohio’s Akron-Canton Airport as the newest dot on its route map. Last week, Spirit launched daily flights from Akron-Canton to Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale and Ft. Myers. The Tampa and Ft. Myers routes will be seasonal only. Next spring, Spirit will add seasonal flights from Akron-Canton to Myrtle Beach and year-round service to Las Vegas.

Southwest has added two more California routes out of San Jose. (Image: Jim Glab)

In domestic route developments, Southwest kicks off new service out of San Jose; JetBlue sets one new transcontinental route and plans the extension of Mint service to another; Delta and American establish new spokes from their Seattle and Charlotte hubs respectively; and all-you-can-fly Surf Air has a new way for customers to meet its membership fees.

Southwest Airlines this week launched service on a pair of new routes out of Mineta San Jose Airport. The carrier started flying once a day from SJC to Baltimore/Washington International and twice a day to Salt Lake City. The eastbound BWI flight is not a redeye, but it departs very early – at 6:35 a.m.

JetBlue’s front-cabin Mint service is coming to San Diego-JFK next year. (Image: JetBlue)

JetBlue Airways has announced plans to add yet another transcontinental route next spring. The airline set a May 3 start for once-daily service linking its Long Beach, California focus city with its Florida counterpart at Ft. Lauderdale. The new flight – which operates as a redeye eastbound – will give JetBlue a total of 35 daily flights to 13 destinations out of Long Beach. Earlier this year, it started new service form Long Beach to Reno/Tahoe and to San Jose. Meanwhile, Routesonline.com says that JetBlue is targeting its San Diego-New York JFK route for the next expansion of its Mint service. The site said the carrier has tentatively set August 15, 2017 for the introduction of Mint service on one of its two daily JFK-SAN flights.

Delta’s next expansion of its growing Seattle base will be a daily flight linking SEA with Milwaukee, due to begin operating on March 9 – a route already served by Alaska Airlines and Southwest. Delta plans to use a Delta Connection/SkyWest Embraer 175 on the route.

American Airlines this week inaugurated service on a new spoke out of its Charlotte hub, offering twice-daily flights to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The service uses CRJ-700s operated by American Eagle/PSA Airlines.

Want to try out Surf Air, the all-you-can-fly membership club that offers small-plane flights on a California intrastate network? If you’re a member of Lufthansa’s Miles & More loyalty program, you can take advantage of a special promotion through the end of March 2017. The company said it is inviting Lufthansa frequent flyers to try out a single roundtrip flight for 25,000 award miles, or an all-you-can-fly membership for travel within California (and to Las Vegas) with redemptions starting at 50,000 for a one-month participation.

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United installed a basketball court (!) inside its massive SFO hangar to celebrate a new sponsorship (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

This week United announced a long-term sponsorship of the Bay Area’s Golden State Warriors basketball team. To celebrate, the carrier installed a temporary branded United-Warriors basketball court (complete with parquet floors and hoops) in United’s SFO Maintenance hangar where over 1,000 employees (and TravelSkills!) watched a dance team, drum corps and a handful of Warriors shoot hoops. As part of this agreement, United will soon have branding in Oakland’s Oracle Arena and, beginning in 2019, inside the new Chase Center, the team’s new arena on the San Francisco waterfront just south of downtown. MileagePlus customers will have the opportunity to use their miles for access to premium seats, suite tickets, VIP experiences and Warriors autographed items.

Links to stories from other sources that we thought you’d like to read:

How often will you be able to find a domestic airline flight that is cheaper than low-cost Southwest? According to a new study, the answer depends on whether or not you check a bag.

You might recall that Southwest has clung tenaciously to its longstanding policy of allowing its passengers to check up to two bags for free – putting it at odds with its competitors (and with the wishes of Wall Street analysts, who would like Southwest to get in line with the industry in order to boost its fee revenues).

Topaz International, which specializes in travel expense auditing, has come out with a new study that found Southwest’s reputation as the lowest-priced option doesn’t really hold up for many business trips – although it is doing better than it was four years ago.

But it is generally the better deal for most leisure travelers.And what’s the difference? Checked bags.

“Most business travelers that Topaz International has spoken to and interacted with during our 35 years of travel consulting are more likely to carry on their luggage in an effort to speed up their trip and get both to their destination and home when completed,” Topaz said. “In this case, while Southwest Airlines can be the lowest cost alternative, 45 percent of the time they are not.”

But adding in the fees for two checked bags means Southwest is almost always the lowest-priced option. In that case, “Only 13 percent of the other airlines’ fares were lower than Southwest Airlines, slightly up from 12 percent in 2012. In fact, they were higher 87 percent of the time.”

Still, Southwest appears to be making progress even with business travelers. While competitors beat Southwest’s fares 45 percent of the time in this year’s study when no checked bags were involved, that’s a drop from 60 percent in the firm’s 2012 study.

Airberlin will add Berlin service from San Francisco and Los Angeles. (Image: Airberlin)

In international route news, Airberlin plans a big increase in U.S. service for 2017, including new flights from Berlin to San Francisco and Los Angeles; Emirates adds another U.S. gateway starting in December; Lufthansa will add more capacity out of Denver; Etihad will more than double frequencies out of Dallas/Ft. Worth; and Southwest sets the starting date for its new Havana service.

Airberlin, which started new routes this year from Dusseldorf to San Francisco and Boston, will increase frequencies in those markets for 2017 and will also add more new U.S. routes including San Francisco-Berlin, Los Angeles-Berlin and Orlando-Dusseldorf. The company said its current U.S. operation will have up to 50 percent more flights when its 2017 summer schedule kicks in during May.

Among the changes: San Francisco-Dusseldorf service will increase from the current five weekly flights to daily service, and so will the current four flights a week between Boston and Dusseldorf. New service to Berlin’s Tegel Airport will include four weekly flights from SFO and three a week from Los Angeles. The new Florida route will bring five flights a week between Orlando and Dusseldorf; the carrier already flies to Miami and Ft. Myers. Airberlin said it is getting three more A330-200s to handle its increased U.S. schedules.

Emirates will use a 777 on its new Ft. Lauderdale route. (Image: Emirates)

Emirates has announced a December 15 start for service to its 11th U.S. destination. The carrier will begin daily flights from Ft. Lauderdale to its Dubai base using a three-class 777-200LR. Emirates already flies to Orlando, a route it launched last year. The new Ft. Lauderdale service will benefit from Emirates’ code-share partnership with JetBlue, which has a hub at that Florida airport.

Lufthansa sees room for growth on its Denver-Munich route, which began earlier this year, so the carrier said it will boost frequencies on March 26 from the current five flights a week to daily departures, using a 255-seat A330-300. “Preliminary data show that for the first summer of service, the number of people traveling between Denver and Munich has increased by nearly 50 percent,” a Denver Airport spokesperson said, adding that the top connecting markets for Denver-Munich passengers include Budapest, Prague, Krakow and Kiev. Lufthansa also flies from Denver to Frankfurt.

Etihad will boost frequencies out of Dallas/Ft. Worth (Photo: Etihad)

Finding more traffic than it initially expected on its almost two-year-old route between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Abu Dhabi, Etihad Airways plans to boost service from the current three flights a week to seven effective February 2. The carrier will continue to use a 777-200LR on the route. Etihad offers connections to 100 destinations from its Abu Dhabi hub, and also offers American travelers pre-screening by U.S. Customs and Border protection at that airport.

Southwest is the latest U.S. carrier to announce a starting date for its new rights to serve Havana, Cuba. The company said that on December 12, subject to Cuban government approval, it will begin flying to Havana from both Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa. (Southwest also set a November 13 inaugural date for flights from Ft. Lauderdale to the Cuban beach resort of Varadero.) The carrier is offering introductory Havana fares starting at $59 each way for purchase through November 20. Southwest set up a web page at www.Southwest.com/Cuba with details of the requirements for travel to Cuba and its flight schedules.

Southwest will add two more California routes in March. (Image: Jim Glab)

In domestic route news, much of the action is in California, including a pair of new Southwest routes, new American flights from northern California and LAX, a new Delta market from Los Angeles, and new intrastate service from JetSuite and a small Hawaiian carrier; meanwhile, Alaska upgrades its equipment on two California routes.

Southwest Airlines, which has focused much if its recent growth on California, plans to add another pair of routes there. The carrier said that beginning March 9, it will start new service to Salt Lake City from both Sacramento and Burbank. Southwest is offering introductory fares starting at $59 one-way for booking through October 20.

On February 16, American Eagle/SkyWest will kick off new daily non-stops between Sonoma County’s Charles M. Schulz Airport in Santa Rosa and AA’s Phoenix hub. The carrier will use a CRJ-700 on the route. Elsewhere in California, American plans to initiate summer seasonal service next year from Los Angeles International to Grand Junction, Colorado. The flights will operate from June 3 through August 19, also with an American Eagle/SkyWest CRJ-700.

Outside of California, American will begin new regional jet service on February 16 from Phoenix to Bullhead City, Arizona; and AA this month began American Eagle/Envoy Air flights twice a day from its Chicago O’Hare hub to Akron/Canton.

As we mentioned the other day in a post about the expansion of lie-flat premium seats on transcontinental routes, Delta plans to launch new service on April 24 between LAX and Washington D.C.’s close-in Reagan National Airport, using a 757-200 equipped with fully-flat seats in the front cabin. At the same time, Delta will drop one of its two daily Salt Lake City-DCA flights, replacing it with a Salt Lake-Washington Dulles service.

A Phenom 100 jet from JetSuite (JetSuite)

JetSuiteX, which offers small-plane public charters within California, will begin new service October 17 between San Jose and McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, north of San Diego. The company will use a four-seat Phenom 100 to fly the route four times a week, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On the same day, JetSuiteX will boost frequencies between San Jose and Burbank to two flights a day– and currently flights from both Concord and San Jose to Burbank are on sale for just $59 each way (for November trips) and that includes checked bags and wi-fi.

Following United’s recent decision to stop flying between San Francisco and Santa Maria, California, that town just got new service from an unlikely source: Hawaii-based Mokulele Airlines. The carrier is flying four times a day between Santa Maria and Terminal 6 at Los Angeles International Airport using nine-passenger Cessna Grand Caravan turboprops.

In nearby Santa Barbara, meanwhile, Alaska Airlines has started to use new 76-passenger Embraer 175s on its routes to Seattle and Portland, replacing 70-passenger CRJ-700s. The new planes have first class, Preferred Plus and regular coach seating, and are equipped with Wi-Fi service.

One Caribbean capital is about to experience what could be the biggest influx of new airline service from the U.S. of all times. In early July, the Transportation Department approved routes to Havana, Cuba for several U.S. airlines. Those route awards were finalized in late August, and airlines have started to announce their inaugural service dates for late fall and winter. Some are still subject to Cuban government approvals.

Alaska Airlines, which will have the only non-stop service to Havana from the West Coast, has set a January 5 start for its new Los Angeles-Havana flights, which will depart LAX at 8:50 a.m. The flight will originate in Seattle. Roundtrip fares from LAX start at $490.

Because the purpose of a traveler’s visit must fall within one of a dozen specific categories, and other formalities and requirements must be met, Alaska has posted a handy blog page with details for customers to know before they book their flight. Alaska said it is working with Cuba Travel Services to help customers obtain visas, accommodations and ground transportation at the destination.

Here is a link to the U.S. government’s official restrictions on travel to Cuba; scroll down to Page 10 to find specifics of the 12 categories of travel.

Nonstops to Havana from U.S. airlines. (Image: Great Circle Mapper)

Delta has targeted December 1 for the launch of daily flights to Havana from Miami and New York JFK along with one-stop service from Atlanta. For travel in February, we found roundtrip fares starting at $200 from Miami, $410 from JFK and $452 from Atlanta.

United Airlines has set a November 29 start for daily non-stops from Newark to Havana, followed on December 3 by weekly Saturday servicefrom Houston Bush Intercontinental to the Cuban capital. Fares in January start at $413 roundtrip from Newark and $513 from Houston.

November 30 is the target date for American Airlines’ new daily flight to Havana from its Charlotte hub. American was also awarded rights for four daily roundtrips from Miami, although it hasn’t yet announced a starting date for those. January roundtrip fares start at $421 from Charlotte.

Chris getting a shave in Cienfuegos, Cuba in May 2016

Frontier Airlines on December 1 is expected to start daily service from Miami to Havana, and will offer connections to that flight from Denver and Las Vegas.

Other new Havana routes expected to start in the next few months include JetBlue service from JFK, Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando; Southwest Airlines flights from Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa; and Spirit Airlines from Ft. Lauderdale. Several airlines have already started or are about to launch service on routes to secondary cities and beach resorts in Cuba; those routes were awarded earlier.

Air China will use an A330-200 between San Jose and Shanghai. (Image: Mehdi Nazarinia/Wikimedia Commons)

In international routes news, Air China comes to San Jose; Delta is dropping routes to Tokyo and Moscow; Las Vegas gets a Beijing flight; Southwest and American plan new service to Mexico from LAX; LaCompagnie suspends London flights; Copa doubles up on San Francisco service; Air Canada trims San Diego-Vancouver capacity; Turkish trims flights to US and EVA adds more seats from Seattle to Taipei. Also, stay tuned to TravelSkills for some really good route news for Oakland coming out this Thursday.

Mineta San Jose International Airport added another international route last week when Air China kicked off new service from SJC to Shanghai – the airline’s only route to Shanghai from North America. Air China is using a two-class, 237-seat Airbus A330-200 on the route, departing San Jose on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Departure time from SJC is 1:30 p.m. for the 12.5-hour flight, with arrival in Shanghai at 4:40 p.m. the next day.

Delta, which recently won new rights to operate daytime flights to Tokyo’s close-in Haneda Airport from Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, said it plans to discontinue its daily New York JFK-Tokyo Narita service on October 2. On October 3, Delta will axe its daily Narita-Osaka flight, and on October 29 it will end its daily Narita-Bangkok service. The airline will still fly to Narita from Seattle, Portland, Detroit and Atlanta. Meanwhile, Delta this week suspended its New York-Moscow non-stop service for the season, with plans to resume the flights in May 2017.

Las Vegas will also get new service to China by year’s end. Hainan Airlines has applied for government approval to fly three times a week between Las Vegas and Beijing, with a starting date of December 2. Hainan has been growing its U.S. presence in recent months, and currently flies from San Jose to Beijing, Los Angeles to Changsha, and Seattle to Beijing and Shanghai.

Both American Airlines and Southwest Airlines apparently see room for growth in the Los Angeles-Mexico market. American is planning to start new daily 737-800 flights on December 15 from LAX to both Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. And Southwest on December 4 will launch twice-daily service from LAX to both Cancun and San Jose del Cabo, as well as one flight a day between LAX and Puerto Vallarta. Meanwhile, Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris plans to begin new service December 1 between Denver and Monterrey, Mexico, operating two A320 flights a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays).

Panama’s Copa Airlines, a member of United’s Star Alliance, plans to increase service between Panama City and United’s San Francisco hub. Effective November 1, Copa will increase its schedule on the route from one to two 737-800 flights a day. (Regrettably both departures from SFO are red-eyes, arriving Panama City in the morning.)

La Compagnie, a niche carrier that offers transatlantic all-business-class flights with 74-seat 757s, said that it will drop its route linking Newark with London’s Luton Airport effective September 25. In October, the carrier will add a second daily flight to its Newark-Paris CDG route. In explaining its decision to drop Newark-London service, La Compagnie said that the recent decision by British voters to take the U.K. out of the European Union – aka Brexit – “has created an unprecedented level of legal and economic uncertainty for airlines that service Great Britain.”

Taiwan’s EVA Air will boost capacity this fall on its route to Taipei from Seattle. The carrier plans to add a second flight three days a week, for a total of 10 a week, beginning November 19. EVA will use a 777-300ER for the extra flights.

Turkish Airlines is cutting back on weekly frequencies, but not to SFO, pictured here (Chris McGinnis)

Turkish Airlines is reducing frequencies to several US cities in the wake of the downturn in demand due to recent events as well as the slower winter season ahead. Airline Routes is reporting service cutbacks (but no elimination of service) between Istanbul and Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami.

Air Canada currently operates an Air Canada Rouge A319 on its daily San Diego-Vancouver route. But the carrier plans to temporarily suspend the route effective October 17, and when it resumes service December 14, it will downsize to a CRJ-705 operated by Air Canada Express. Elsewhere in Canada, Westjet plans to convert its seasonal Calgary-New York JFK service into a year-round route, operating six flights a week when its winter schedule begins October 30.

United & Delta adding even more flights at SFO (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

There’s plenty of domestic route news to catch up on from the last few weeks. United and Delta are adding routes from San Francisco; Alaska and Delta are doing the same at Seattle; United is growing at San Jose; JetBlue is adding service at Long Beach; and new routes are coming at American, Southwest and Frontier. (We’ll post an international routes update later this week.)

At San Francisco, United plans to begin service next spring to both Detroit and Cincinnati. Effective June 8, the airline will operate one daily A319 roundtrip in each market, competing against Delta. And from December 17 through April 1, United will fly once a week (on Saturdays) with a CRJ-700 from San Francisco to Kalispell, Montana.

United also revealed plans to bulk up at San Jose by adding new 737-800 flights starting March 9 from SJC to its hubs at Chicago O’Hare and Newark. The carrier will fly twice a day to O’Hare and once a day to Newark. (United’s planned San Jose-Newark flight will begin just three days before Alaska Airlines’ recently announced new service on the same route, which will have the same departure time from SJC.) American and Southwest both fly from SJC to Chicago, and JetBlue serves the SJC-New York JFK market. Meanwhile, United on September 7 is due to launch new service to Chattanooga, Tenn., from both Newark and Chicago O’Hare, with two daily flights in each market.

In October, United will discontinue its existing twice-daily intra-California service between San Francisco and Santa Maria, which is operated by United Express/Skywest with a CRJ-200. On the other coast, United set a November 29 termination date for its twice-daily United Express service between Newark and Binghamton, New York. But on December 16, United plans to resume seasonal flights between its Washington Dulles hub and Ft. Lauderdale, with one flight a day through January 4, then two a day until May 4.

Delta has unveiled plans for a growth spurt at Boston next spring, including a resumption of Boston-San Francisco service. The carrier will offer two BOS-SFO flights a day, using 757-200s, beginning June 8. On the same date, Delta will double its Boston-Seattle schedule from one daily flight to two. Delta will also begin new Delta Connection/Endeavor Air service between Boston and Nashville, with one daily flight using a two-class CRJ-900. Also coming from Delta is new service from Seattle to Eugene, Oregon, with three daily CRJ-700 flights beginning April 1; and a new daily roundtrip between Seattle and Raleigh-Durham effective June 8.

Long Beach, California will get more service from JetBlue next year. The carrier set a January 4 launch for new Long Beach-San Jose service, where it will offer four daily roundtrips. The airline will also beef up its schedules on existing Long Beach routes, adding three more flights a day to Las Vegas, one extra departure to San Francisco, and one more to Salt Lake City. (The Bay Area will also get new service to Long Beach from Southwest in June, when the carrier is set to launch four flights a day from Oakland.) Elsewhere on its system, JetBlue plans to add new daily service on January 12 between Chicago O’Hare and Ft. Lauderdale, but on January 11 it will discontinue service between O’Hare and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Alaska Airlines will continue to build up its Seattle hub next spring with the addition of two more routes to the Midwest. On April 13, Alaska will kick off new daily service from SEA to Wichita, Kans., with a SkyWest Embraer 175; and on May 11 it will add new daily 737 roundtrips between SEA and Indianapolis.

The spring schedule from Southwest Airlines, which begins in March, includes new daily service between Houston Hobby and Omaha, along with new twice-daily flights between Newark and Ft. Lauderdale. At the same time, the airline will begin seasonal daily service linking Las Vegas with Minneapolis-St. Paul.

SkyWest, operating as American Eagle, will begin new daily service November 4 linking AA’s Phoenix hub with St. George, Utah. The flight will use a 50-seat CRJ-200. On the east coast, American has scheduled a December 15 start for new American Eagle/Republic Airlines service between New York’s Westchester County Airport and Miami, offering two flights a day with two-class E-175s.

Ultra-low-cost Frontier Airlines plans a December 6 expansion at Phoenix, where it will begin service to Milwaukee and St. Louis, each with four flights a week; and to Nashville and Des Moines, each with three flights a week.

On December 15, American will launch daily roundtrips from Phoenix to Santa Fe and Sioux Falls. The Santa Fe flights will use a SkyWest CRJ 700, and the Sioux Falls service will be operated by a Mesa Airlines CRJ 900.

In domestic route news, Alaska will add several routes into Newark; JetSuite plans a new California Corridor route; Southwest has its eye on Long Beach-Las Vegas service; United and American grow at Memphis; and Frontier and Spirit expand their Florida presence.

Taking advantage of the FAA’s decision to open up more takeoff and landing slots at Newark Liberty International Airport this fall, Alaska Airlines said it plans to add new flights there from four West Coast cities. On November 10, Alaska will begin one daily roundtrip from Portland to Newark, followed on November 21 by a new daily flight from San Diego to Newark; neither of the eastbound flights will be red-eyes. Then in 2017, Alaska will add a daily flight from San Jose to Newark on March 12, along with a third daily Seattle-Newark roundtrip beginning May 14.

Alaska also said it will begin twice-weekly seasonal service between Portland and Sun Valley, Idaho, operating from December 17 to April 1 and again from June 14 to September 16, 2017, using a Horizon Air Q400 turboprop.

Earlier this year, a private jet operator called JetSuite launched a new service between Burbank and Concord, California (just east of San Francisco) called JetSuiteX, selling single seats on scheduled departures of 30-seat Embraer 135s. And now the company plans to add a new JetSuiteX route on August 15, linking Burbank and San Jose with 12 weekly roundtrips and introductory fares as low as $99.

Last month, Southwest Airlines added Long Beach, California to its route map, launching four daily roundtrips to Oakland. And now Southwest plans to add daily Long Beach-Las Vegas flights beginning September 18, with introductory fares starting at $39. But the Long Beach-Las Vegas service is only scheduled to continue through the end of December.

American and United are planning to increase capacity out of Memphis, according to the Memphis Business Journal. It said that on August 23, American will replace smaller regional jets and an MD-82 with 160-seat 737s for its two daily Memphis-Dallas/Ft. Worth flights; and on October 6, it will add a fourth daily weekday flight between Memphis and Washington Reagan National. On October 31, the publication reported, United plans to replace a CRJ-700 with a 166-seat 737 for one of its two daily Memphis-Denver flights. This month, American eclipsed Delta as Memphis’ largest carrier.

Spirit Airlines is expanding its Florida network. (Photo: Spirit)

Spirit Airlines will boost its presence at Orlando this fall, adding daily service to five cities, including Boston and Philadelphia starting October 7; Kansas City beginning November 10; and Niagara Falls and Plattsburgh, N.Y. as of November 17. Also on November 10, Spirit will kick off new daily non-stops from Baltimore/Washington to both Tampa and Fort Myers, Fla.

On October 30, Frontier Airlines is planning to launch daily roundtrips from San Diego to Orlando, as well as three weekly flights linking Orlando with Des Moines, Iowa. Meanwhile, Frontier will also trim its schedule at Pittsburgh at the end of October, discontinuing service to Atlanta and to Chicago O’Hare.

The lovely Palacio Azul in Cienfuegos, a tiny Cuban city set for nonstop flights from the US (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

The U.S. Transportation Department has issued a long-awaited decision awarding U.S. airlines new route authority to fly to Cuba, but it left out one major destination.

Several U.S. carriers had applied for as much route authority as they thought they could handle, anticipating a boom in U.S. travel to the island nation following the Obama Administration’s decision to open up relations with Cuba. In its decision Friday, DOT gave its approval to six U.S. carriers, five U.S. cities and nine Cuban destinations for new air service beginning as soon as this fall.

But the Cuban capital of Havana was not among the cities listed. And Havana is the big prize.

The U.S.-Cuba aviation pact provides for each country to operate up to 10 daily roundtrips between the U.S. and Cuba’s nine airports other than Havana, or a maximum total of 90 flights a day. Over the longer term, it also allows up to 20 daily roundtrips between the U.S. and Havana.

DOT said the requests it received from U.S carriers for Havana rights totaled almost 60 flights a day – too many to sort through for the initial route awards. “A decision on the Havana routes will be announced later this summer,” DOT said.

Notably absent from this list: Delta and United, which we expect to be on the list for Havana flights.

In the wake of DOT’s announcement, American Airlines said it expects to begin scheduled flights in September from its Miami hub to five of the destinations, while JetBlue plans to launch service to three Cuban destinations from Ft. Lauderdale.

As of now, there is still no word on how much it might cost jump on a commercial flight to Cuba. Flights on the current charter flights are in the $500 range, roundtrip.

While most Caribbean islands have just one international airport, Cuba is a much larger place –it’s 750 miles long, with a population of 11 million – and has built up some tourism infrastructure over the years, mostly accommodating visitors from Canada and Europe.

Are you planning to visit Cuba in the next year? Why or why not? Please leave your comments below.

Alaska is taking on Southwest in a battle for California dominance. (Image: Jim Glab)

Bay Area travelers have some new airline options this week as carriers add more routes in a growing competition for California customers.

Alaska Airlines has taken on the daunting task of horning in on a pair of Southwest Airlines’ intra-California monopoly routes out of San Jose. Alaska just started up three daily flights between San Jose and Orange County’s John Wayne Airport, as well as three daily roundtrips between San Jose-San Diego. The flights will be operated for Alaska by SkyWest, using 76-seat E175s with first class, Preferred Plus and main cabin seating, as well as Wi-Fi access and free streaming entertainment. They’ll be facing Southwest’s heavy daily schedules of multiple 737 flights in both markets.

At Oakland, meanwhile, Southwest this week launched nine new daily flights, including new intrastate service to Long Beach four times a day, along with three new daily flights to Reno-Tahoe and one to St. Louis. Southwest also boosted its Oakland-Baltimore/Washington schedule from one flight a day to two.

With the new service from Oakland to Long Beach, “Oakland and Southwest will offer more daily departures by a single airline from a Bay Area airport to Southern California with 43 peak non-stop flights per day,” according to a spokesperson for the airport. With the latest additions, Southwest now has more than 120 flights a day out of OAK – with half of them going to airports in the greater Los Angeles region plus San Diego.

The new routes are just the latest escalation in a growing battle for the California market between Southwest and Alaska, which should get really interesting when Alaska merges with San Francisco-based Virgin America. And more new routes are coming from the two carriers, including Alaska’s plan to begin Sacramento-San Diego and San Jose-Burbank flights next winter, and new Southwest flights from San Jose to Baltimore/Washington and Salt Lake City coming this fall.

Cruising over Oahu on Virgin America (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Speaking of Virgin America, that airline is due to add another new Hawaii route next week (June 14), when it kicks off daily service from Los Angeles to Maui’s Kahului Airport. Early last month, Virgin started daily LAX-Honolulu flights. It also flies to both islands from San Francisco.

American’s new service to Seattle from LAX has plenty of competition. (Image: Jim Glab)

In domestic route news this week, American has a big growth spurt at Los Angeles International, and adds new routes from Dallas/Ft. Worth and Tucson; Delta announces a pair of new markets in the western U.S. and adds an East Coast route; United revives some Cleveland routes but drops two California flights; and Southwest plans five new non-stop routes this fall.

It’s a big week for American Airlines at Los Angeles International, where the carrier has started more than 20 new flights to a number of domestic destinations. As part of its build-up at LAX, American is adding two more gates and hundreds of employees there this year. New destinations added to its LAX schedule this week include Seattle (five flights a day in a busy market already served by Delta, Alaska, Virgin America, United and Spirit), Portland (three a day), and Minneapolis-St. Paul (two a day), as well as single daily roundtrips from Los Angeles to New Orleans, Kansas City, Omaha and Hartford. American also added seasonal daily flights from LAX to Anchorage, and weekend service to Durango, Colorado; and will operate summer flights to Jackson Hole, Wyoming every day and to Montrose, Colorado and Vail/Eagle, Colorado on weekends. With the schedule additions, AA now operates more than 220 flights a day at Los Angeles.

Delta will use E175s for new San Diego-Las Vegas service. (Image: Delta)

Delta Air Lines has set a December 17 start for new service linking San Diego and Las Vegas, a market thoroughly dominated by Southwest. Delta plans to operate three flights a day on the route, using Embraer 175s. And at its Salt Lake City hub, Delta plans to revive service this winter to Aspen, Colorado after a six-year hiatus. The Delta Connection/SkyWest flights will operate once a day with a CRJ700, starting December 17. On the East Coast, meanwhile, Delta just announced plans to begin flying between Newark Liberty International and Raleigh-Durham beginning November 6, using two-class CRJ-700s for three flights a day, operated by Delta Connection/GoJet.

United has been seriously downsizing the former Continental hub at Cleveland Hopkins, but it plans to operate seasonal flights to Florida again this winter, in spite of new competition from several low-cost carriers, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It said the airline will offer seasonal service from CLE to Ft. Lauderdale and Ft. Myers from December 16 through early April. Meanwhile, United will end a couple of California routes, according to Routesonline.com. It will drop its daily Los Angeles-New Orleans service effective August 16, and its daily flights between Ontario and Houston Bush Intercontinental (operated by SkyWest) at the end of June.

In addition to the two new routes it will add from San Jose starting November 6 – to Salt Lake City and to Baltimore-Washington International – Southwest Airlines said that on the same date it will begin new service between Washington Reagan National and Providence, Rhode Island; Washington Dulles and Orlando; and Kansas City and San Antonio. The airline has already started taking reservations on all the new fall routes.

United is ending Edmonton service from San Francisco and Chicago. (Image: Travel Alberta)

Canada is losing some U.S. service but gaining capacity in other markets, and Southwest has its eye on three new Mexico routes from Los Angeles.

Low oil prices are taking a toll on energy industry-related traffic into western Canada. United plans to suspend service after June 30 from both San Francisco and Chicago O’Hare to Edmonton, Alberta; it operates daily E175 flights in both markets. In October, however, United plans to increase Edmonton-Denver service from one flight a day to two. Meanwhile, also on June 30, United will end flights from Houston to Montreal and from Chicago O’Hare to London, Ontario.

And Delta has set a July 31 termination date for its twice-daily service to Regina, Saskatchewan from its Minneapolis-St. Paul hub, ending the last service by a U.S. carrier to the provincial capital. But on June 9, Delta will lay on a second daily roundtrip between Seattle and Edmonton. Air Canada, meanwhile, has just launched a major new U.S. route between Salt Lake City and Toronto.

Across the southern border, Southwest Airlines said it plans to apply for government approvals that should open up new vacation destinations for Rapid Rewards members. The airline wants to begin flying from Los Angeles International to the Mexican resort destinations of Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and San Jose del Cabo. Southwest said it expects to win the necessary approvals by late June, and to begin flying the new routes in November.

The chance of getting the award seats you want varies considerably by airline and by season. (Image: Jim Glab)

What are your odds of scoring the frequent flyer award seats you want, on the dates you want? The odds change over time, but the latest (i.e., 2016) annual study of availability by IdeaWorks Company and Switchfly suggests that Delta SkyMiles members are seeing significantly better odds this year, while availability declined on Alaska, United and especially American.

But among the U.S. carriers covered in the survey, Southwest’s award seat availability was head and shoulders above everyone else’s, with JetBlue running second.

The survey team made more than 7,000 queries during March for at least two roundtrip award seats on the websites of 25 airline loyalty programs worldwide. They requested travel on dates from June through October, looking for the lowest-priced (i.e. “saver style”) award seats.

Low-cost (or as the study team calls them, “value-oriented”) airlines dominated the results, as they have most years. Among U.S. carriers, the success rate for finding the desired seats was 100 percent on Southwest and 92.9 percent on JetBlue. For Southwest, that was the same as last year, while the JetBlue result showed a gain of 5.7 points. (In fact, Southwest was found to have at least three available flight choices for every query.)

As for other large U.S. carriers, the success rate on queries to Delta was 68.6 percent, an improvement of 10.7 points over the 2015 survey. The comparable rate on United was 72.1 percent, down 2.9 points. For Alaska it was 72.9 percent, down 7.1 points. And for American, the success rate was just 56.4 percent, a drop of 10.7 percent from 2015.

Virgin America was not included in the study.

The report noted that availability varies considerably based on the month of travel. For 2016, the best availability was in September (84.3 percent) and October (84.8 percent), while the worst was in July (53.1 percent). It also observed that long-haul rewards can be especially elusive in the summer months. “Some airlines radically reduce reward inventory for long-haul travel during June, July and August. This is often a major source of member frustration,” the report said.

Here’s a chart summarizing the results for long-haul flights:

Readers: Is it getting easier to use you miles and points….or not? Please leave your comments below.

J.D. Power says airline passengers are more satisfied these days. Are you? (Image: Jim Glab)

Is U.S. airline service getting better? Or are passengers just becoming more resigned to things as they are?

According to J.D. Power’s just-released 2016 North American Airline Satisfaction Survey, respondents’ satisfaction with their air travel experience is at a 10-year high, reaching an overall score of 726 on the company’s 1,000-point scale, up 9 points from last year.

J.D. Power said the survey of more than 10,000 persons who traveled by air on the past year shows that “airlines are making positive strides by adding value to their products and services with newer and cleaner planes, better in-flight services, improving on-time arrivals and bumping fewer passengers.”

But it also noted that a 12-point improvement this year in satisfaction with costs and fees is partly due to the fact that “passengers are more tolerant of paying ancillary fees such as baggage fees or fees for extra legroom.” It also noted that the score for in-flight services (650) is still “the lowest-scoring factor overall” in satisfaction levels; other factors include costs and fees, boarding/deplaning/baggage, flight crew, aircraft, check-in and the reservations process.

The company observed that for the first time in the survey’s history, business travelers showed a higher satisfaction level than leisure travelers (733 to 725), probably because business travelers are less concerned about price. (Or possibly because airlines have been focusing their product and service improvements on the highest-paying customers.)

The survey splits airlines into “traditional” carriers and “low-cost” carriers, although the distinctions don’t seem as significant as they once did (and for some reason, it does not include Virgin America or Spirit Airlines in the survey). Once again, “low-cost” carriers got the highest overall scores, with JetBlue in first place with 790 – its 12th year at the top of the J.D. Power charts. Southwest scored 789. The highest score for a “traditional” carrier was Alaska at 751.

United had the lowest score among traditional airlines at 675, while Frontier ranked at the bottom in the low-cost category at 662.

In a companion survey on airline loyalty programs – which did not divide the airlines into two categories — the same airlines dominated the results, with Alaska’s Mileage Plan earning the highest score (757) for the third year in a row, followed by Southwest’s Rapid Rewards at 754 and JetBlue’s TrueBlue at 743. United also took the bottom spot in the loyalty survey, with Mileage Plus earning a score of 673.

J.D. Power recognized that loyalty programs at major carriers are changing from mileage-based to spending-based schemes, although it didn’t ask respondents what they thought about that. It said the most significant factor for travelers in rating loyalty programs is still the ease of redeeming points/miles.

The last time we reported on a J.D. Power survey – on hotel loyalty programs – some of our readers expressed skepticism about the entire process. One noted that the results chart “uses an old trick to accentuate differences.” Another charged that it used “far too small a sample,” and a third wrote, “I took a look at what went into the survey, and it’s complete garbage in garbage out.”

What do you think about the airline survey, readers? Are J.D. Power surveys worth reporting on?

Sleep in a discounted Delta flat bed to Europe this summer! (Photo: Delta Air Lines)

Before we get started with this week’s most popular post, let’s take a look at an unusual opportunity. Late last week Delta trotted out some very nice discounts for SkyMiles award travel to Europe– in business class. This is the yet another sign that European bookings have taken a hit this summer. The first was the fare sales we saw from United and SAS this week (our most popular post). And now, this. The discounts start at just 105,000 miles for Delta One (bidness) for roundtrips June 3 to October 29 (with lots of blackout dates). BUT, you must act fast– currently the deals are only good if you book by Thursday, April 21. Here are the details . Even if you don’t have a big stash of SkyMiles, keep in mind that you can convert your American Express Membership Rewards points to Delta miles. Stay tuned to TravelSkills in coming weeks as I think we’ll continue to see some very good deals across the pond this year.

TravelSkills’ 10 most popular posts over the last week (descending order):

The BIG giveaway! Stay tuned to TravelSkills this week for our biggest giveaway EVER. Get this: We have TWO roundtrip business class tickets to give away on a new Asian route from SFO. Any guesses where? The big reveal comes this week. To win them, you’ll have to agree to write up a Trip Report for TravelSkills. Are you game? Stay tuned!

Links to stories from other sources that we thought you’d like to read:

Southwest has become a major player on international routes. (Image: Southwest)

This week Southwest Airlines kicked off new daily service from Los Angeles International to Liberia, Costa Rica – not major news in itself, but the latest reminder that what was once a strictly domestic airline has gradually developed an international network of significant proportions.

From zero international destinations in June 2014, Southwest now flies to 11 of them, all in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, with flights from a dozen domestic gateways. The airline started out by absorbing international routes from its acquisition of AirTran Airways and then added its own.

Destinations include Cancun, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos in Mexico; Belize City, Belize; Liberia and San Jose in Costa Rica; Nassau, Bahamas; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; and Aruba. (It also serves San Juan, but that’s not an international destination.) By June of 2015, Southwest was operating a Saturday schedule of more than 100 flights to those points.

The biggest bump in Southwest’s international service came last fall, when the airline added flights from Houston Hobby to all four of the airports it serves in Mexico and to both Costa Rican cities, as well as Montego Bay, Jamaica and seasonal flights to Aruba and San Juan. That big increase was made possible by Hobby’s opening of a new international concourse for Southwest. The airline now has a dedicated international section on its website.

If Southwest has its way, it will soon add another big destination to its growing international route map. The company has applied to three points in Cuba from Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando. But it has lots of competition from other big U.S. airlines eager to crack the Cuba market.

In other news – in case you haven’t already noticed – Southwest last month quietly raised the fee for its Early Bird Check-In option from $12.50 to $15.

Have you flown Southwest lately? How’d that go for you? Would you fly Southwest south of the border? Please leave your comments below.

In domestic route developments, Southwest expands within California and adds several other markets; American adds three routes from the Midwest; United adds a spoke from its Denver hub and drops one from Dulles; Alaska tries a new Kona gateway; and JetBlue adjusts the launch of LAX Mint flights.

Southwest Airlines will add Long Beach, California to its map on June 5, when it begins operating four flights a day from there to Oakland. The carrier is offering $49 one-way fares for travel through November 4, with an April 14 booking deadline. Southwest also has new service starting April 12 on several routes, with one daily flight in each market, including Atlanta to Greenville-Spartanburg; Baltimore/Washington to Minneapolis-St. Paul; Chicago Midway to Dayton, Ohio and to Flint and Grand Rapids, Mich.; Newark to Las Vegas and to Orlando; Phoenix to Wichita, Kans.; and St. Louis to Wichita and to Des Moines, Iowa.

United is adding two new routes from Denver International (Image: Jim Glab)

United has added a new spoke from its Denver hub, launching daily service to Richmond, Virginia; it’s the longest flight and the westernmost point served no-stop from Richmond. Meanwhile, United has set June 8 as the last day for United Express service between its Washington Dulles hub and Moline, Illinois.

Bellingham, Washington isn’t all that far from Seattle, but Alaska Airlines decided the city needs its own service to the Big Island of Hawaii. Alaska said it will operate once-a-week seasonal service (on Saturdays) between Bellingham and Kona from November 12 through April 1, using a 737-800.

According to Airlineroute.net, JetBlue has moved up the starting date for putting a Mint-equipped aircraft onto its Boston-Los Angeles route. The first Mint-equipped A321 will start flying LAX-Boston on October 20 instead of October 30. By November 17, the premium cabins should be on all three of JetBlue’s three daily flights in the market.

Virgin America’s new route links the Bay Area with the Rocky Mountains- and lowers fares. (Image: Virgin America)

In domestic route news, Virgin America breaks into a big new business market; JetBlue targets Ft. Lauderdale for substantial growth; Southwest doubles capacity on a Bay Area transcontinental route; American adds some secondary markets; and Frontier plans three new routes.

On Tuesday, Virgin America started flying its newest U.S. route, offering three flights a day between San Francisco and Denver – a route dominated by United. Earlier this month, United prepared for battle by increasing frequencies on the SFO-DEN route to as many as a dozen flights a day. To promote the new route, Virgin is offering promotional discounts of up to 30 percent off Main Cabin fares between DEN-SFO for travel from April 12 to May 25, on bookings made through March 24.

JetBlue announced plans for significant growth at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, saying that it expects to increase operations there during the winter to 140 flights a day “in the coming years;” that’s an increase of 75 percent over its current schedules. The only specific expansion it mentioned in the announcement was a plan to begin Ft. Lauderdale-New Orleans service on September 29, with one daily roundtrip; and an increase in Ft. Lauderdale-Nassau, Bahamas service from three flights a day to five, starting August 1.

Effective for the summer season from June 5 through August 6, Southwest Airlines plans to add a second daily roundtrip between Oakland and Baltimore-Washington International. The carrier said it will increase capacity on several other BWI routes during the same period, adding a sixth daily flight between BWI and Denver, a ninth between BWI-Manchester, N.H.; an eighth between BWI and Hartford Bradley; a seventh between BWI and Tampa; and a 10th between BWI and Orlando.

American Airlines will add a new spoke from its Phoenix hub on June 2, launching one daily roundtrip to Redmond, Oregon. The route will be operated by Skywest/American Eagle with a CRJ700. And on May 5, new Envoy/American Eagle E145 flights are due to begin between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Sioux City, Iowa’s Sioux Gateway Airport (for trivia buffs: the airport’s three-letter code is SUX).

Frontier Airlines has unveiled plans for three more new routes in the months ahead. On May 15, it will begin flying between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas three times a week; on June 22, it will kick off one daily roundtrip between Denver and Washington Dulles; and on June 28, it will start daily service linking Phoenix with Colorado Springs.

In domestic route news, Southwest will add a number of new flights out of California airports in August; Delta will tack on new spokes from its Salt Lake City and New York LaGuardia hubs; American revives a secondary California route from DFW; and United changes planes on a west coast route out of San Francisco.

Southwest Airlines’ latest schedule announcement says the carrier will begin service August 7 on several new California routes, including daily non-stops from Los Angeles International to Pittsburgh; from Burbank and Ontario to Portland; from San Diego to Milwaukee; and from Sacramento to Baltimore/Washington International. In addition, Southwest will launch new daily service from Nashville to Charlotte, and from Ft. Lauderdale to Nassau, Bahamas. Southwest also said it intends to extend some seasonal routes beyond August to year-round service, including Houston Hobby to Seattle and Portland; Kansas City-Seattle; San Diego-St. Louis; Ft. Lauderdale-Pittsburgh and Ft. Lauderdale-Kansas City.

Delta plans to resume service on March 2 between its Salt Lake City hub and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., according to Airlineroute.net. The carrier will operate one daily non-stop using A320 or 737-800 aircraft. Another new route for Delta, this one starting April 4, is Delta Connection service linking New York LaGuardia with Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, located between Fayetteville and Bentonville (home of Walmart’s world headquarters). The route will operate six days a week with a CRJ700.

American Airlines stopped flying from Santa Barbara to its Dallas/Ft. Worth hub in 2009, but now it plans to revive that route. AA will begin daily American Eagle flights on June 2, using a 76-passenger, two-cabin CRJ900.

United Airlines plans to revise its schedule between San Francisco and Eugene, Oregon starting June 9, changing aircraft types and frequencies. United currently offers United Express/SkyWest service six times a day in the SFO-Eugene market, using regional jets. But in June, it will cut frequencies to four flights a day and will switch three of those to mainline Airbus A319s and A320s. One flight will still use a regional jet. The net result will be a 31 percent increase in the number of seats United flies in the market.

Bistro scramble from the Choice Menu in United Economy. (Image: United)

In odds and ends of airline news, United is adding a perk for top elites flying in economy; Southwest improves the capabilities of its mobile app; JetBlue customers can now book flights to Hawaii; and Delta tweaks the cost of SkyMiles award flights.

United this week started offering a new benefit to its highest-level elites who fly in economy class. The airline said Premier 1Ks and Global Services members will now get one free food item from its Choice Menu in addition to the one free drink that it started offering them last fall. The offer is good on United mainline and United Connection flights on all routes within North America, including the Caribbean, Mexico and central America. 1Ks and Global Services members should let the flight attendant know their status and verify it by showing a member card or boarding pass.

With the newly enhanced version of Southwest Airlines’ iOS app, available in Apple’s App Store, customers can integrate the app with their Rapid Rewards account, an action that lets them use a new express check-out feature for app-based bookings. Southwest said the enhancements also let users book car rentals, see information on upcoming trips and save bvoarding passes to Apple Wallet within the app. Integration with Rapid Rewards lets them see their progress towards A-List, A-List Preferred and Companion Pass tier status.

You can now book flights to Hawaii on JetBlue (kinda)

JetBlue’s code-share partnership with Hawaiian Airlines, which previously was a one-way arrangement that put Hawaiian’s code onto domestic JetBlue flights, is going bilateral. The airline said it is now placing its B6 code onto Hawaiian’s non-stop flights from New York JFK to Honolulu and on select connecting flights to Honolulu via Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas. JetBlue’s code extension also applies to Hawaiian service beyond Honolulu to Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. “Customers purchasing a code-share itinerary will benefit from having a single ticket that includes both Hawaiian and JetBlue-operated flights as well as conveniences on their day of travel like one-stop check-in and baggage transfer,” JetBlue said. Currently, JetBlue fares from JFK to HNL for February trips on in the $700 round trip range.

Loyalty program bloggers are raising red flags about discovering some changes coming to the cost of award travel in Delta’s SkyMiles program. As members must know, Delta decided a while back to stop publishing the traditional chart of mileage costs on its SkyMiles website, so you won’t know the cost until you make a query about a specific route, and changes in costs are not announced — they’re just implemented. Anyway, according to the blog specialists, the latest changes will take effect October 1, with the minimum cost of international business class tickets going up in many markets– e.g., at least 80,000 miles one-way to Asia (up 10,000); 75,000 to southern South America (up 12,500) and 95,000 to Australia/New Zealand (up 15,000). Meanwhile, the minimum cost of international economy awards in many markets is dropping by 5,000 to 10,000 miles.

Business class on Qatar’s 777-200, now flying to Los Angeles. (Image: Qatar Airways)

In international route developments, Qatar starts flying to its newest U.S. gateway; Emirates will take up the slack when United drops a Mideast route; JetBlue takes its code-sharing pact with Icelandair to the next level; Southwest schedules a new Costa Rica flight; and Alaska drops a Canada route.

Qatar Airways has inaugurated service on its newest U.S. route, beginning daily non-stops between Los Angeles International and Doha, Qatar with a 777-200. LAX departures are at 3:10 p.m., arriving in Doha at 6:10 p.m. the next day. It’s Qatar’s first step in an ambitious U.S. route expansion this year: The carrier plans to start new service to Boston on March 16 and to Atlanta on June 1. Qatar has also introduced the first Airbus A350 service to the U.S., putting the new aircraft onto its Philadelphia route this month. It plans to begin A350 service between New York and Doha in April.

Since United plans to eliminate its Washington Dulles-Dubai service on January 25, Emirates is moving in to fill the gap. (United had blamed government-subsidized overcapacity by Emirates and other Middle eastern carriers for its decision; it also ended Dulles-Kuwait/Bahrain service this week). Effective February 1, Emirates — which will then have a monopoly on Dulles-Dubai non-stops — plans to replace its 777-300ER on the route with an Airbus A380 super-jumbo offering 489 seats in three classes. Meanwhile, Emirates also said it will increase its Los Angeles-Dubai schedule starting July 1 with the addition of a second daily A380 non-stop.

JetBlue has had a code-sharing relationship with Icelandair for almost five years, but it’s been mostly a one-way affair, with Icelandair’s code going onto JetBlue flights but not the other way around. But that all changed this week: JetBlue said it is now putting its B6 code onto Icelandair’s flights into Reykjavik from New York JFK, Newark, Boston, Orlando and Washington Dulles. That means tickets to Iceland can now be booked directly with JetBlue, with single ticekting, one-stop check-in and automatic baggage transfers. “In the future, the B6 code will be placed on additional Icelandair routes between the U.S. and Reykjavik and on flights beyond Iceland to select destinations in Scandinavia and continental Europe,” JetBlue said.

Alaska Airlines has been flying between Los Angeles and Vancouver for 20 years, but that will end on June 3, when the carrier will discontinue the route, according to Airlineroute,.net. Alaska currently operates just one daily flight between LAX and Vancouver, although in recent years it had as many as six a day.

In international route news this week, Norwegian confirms its plans for Oakland-London service; United says it is considering new non-stops to Singapore; Air France will add a new Paris route — but not to Charles de Gaulle; a Chinese carrier plans new LAX flights; KLM will boost its San Francisco schedule; and Southwest will drop a Mexico route.

Following up on our report from last week, European low-cost carrier Norwegian has confirmed that it plans to start new service from Oakland to London Gatwick effective May 12, operating three flights a week. The carrier said fares on the route will start at $299 one way, including taxes (plus ancillary fees, of course; it’s already taking bookings at www.Norwegian.com/us). Norwegian also announced plans to increase its Los Angeles-London Gatwick schedule from three to four flights a week starting May 10, and to move up the start of Boston-London service from late May to March 27, with five weekly flights instead of four. The carrier’s long-haul routes use 787-8s with economy and premium seating.

Have you flown or heard from someone who has flow Norwegian? What’s it like? Please leave your comments below.

London Gatwick airport is about 30 minutes south of city center by train (VisitLondon.com)

Now that Singapore Airlines is on track to resume non-stop flights to the U.S. in 2018, United Airlines is considering a competing service. A United executive told Aviation Daily that the company is considering its aircraft options. “When we have the right aircraft, we will tackle that market” (i.e., non-stops to Singapore), United’s VP-Network Brian Znotins told the publication. Singapore Airlines will use a long-range version of the Airbus A350 designated the A350-900ULR. Znotis did not say which U.S. gateway United has in mind, but Av Daily noted that San Francisco would be the carrier’s hub closest to Singapore.

Air France already operates several flights a day from New York JFK to Paris Charles de Gaulle, but in June it plans to add a daily flight from JFK to Paris Orly, using a 309-seat 777-200 with business, premium economy and regular economy classes. Connections at Orly are available to the airline’s domestic network. Air France also plans to begin three weekly flights from CDG to Teheran, Iran in April.

According to Airlineroute.net, China’s Hainan Airlines plans to begin service between Changsha and Los Angeles on January 21, operating two flights a week with a 787-8. Changsha is the capital of Hunan Province in south-central China.

For its summer schedule beginning May 4, KLM plans to increase its Amsterdam-San Francisco schedule from seven flights a week to nine, using 787-9 Dreamliners for the two extra flights. The others will continue to use a 747-400.

Southwest Airlines will change its Mexico City operations on March 16, according to Airlineroute.net. The carrier plans to discontinue its daily service between San Antonio-Mexico City and to add a second daily roundtrip between Houston Hobby and Mexico City.

Southwest will add a pair of routes at Oakland in the spring. (Image: Oakland Airport)

In domestic route news, Southwest announces a spate of new routes starting in June; American Airlines plans to add new service at three Midwestern cities; JetBlue adds a pair of Florida routes; and Spirit grows at Atlanta.

When Southwest Airlines’ summer schedule begins on June 5, it will include new daily service from Oakland to St. Louis and three flights a day from Oakland to Reno, as well as new daily flights from St. Louis to Portland, Ore. and Cleveland. Also in Southwest’s plans are a new daily roundtrip between Burbank and Dallas Love Field. On June 11, Southwest will add daily service between Denver and Buffalo, N.Y.

Norwegian reportedly plans new Oakland-London service with a 787. (Image: Creative Commons)

In international route news, Bay Area travelers may see a new low-cost option to London in the spring; another U.S. carrier pulls out of the Dubai market; British Airways and its new sister company Aer Lingus are sharing codes all over the place; China Eastern will boost frequencies to a Midwest gateway; and Southwest eyes new international service from LAX.

Although the airline hasn’t announced or confirmed it yet, the website Airlineroute.net reports that European low-cost carrier Norwegian has filed a proposed schedule to fly between Oakland and London Gatwick. Based on data from the OAG Schedules Analyzer, Airlineroute.net said Norwegian plans to use a 787-8 to fly the route three days a week (Monday, Thursday and Sunday) starting May 12. Norwegian already has service from Oakland to Stockholm and Olso twice a week; it currently shows one-way fares to Stockholm in January for as little as $169 (plus ancillary fees).

The proposed Norwegian service, infrequent though it is, would give Bay Area travelers to the U.K. another option instead of flying out of San Francisco International — in addition to the new British Airways service from Mineta San Jose International to Heathrow that starts May 4 with a 787-9. In other news, Norwegian has pushed up the start of new Boston-London Gatwick 787 flights — slated for five days a week — from May to March 27.

Remember how Delta blamed government-subsidized competition and excess capacity from the big Mideast carriers for its decision to discontinue Atlanta-Dubai service this coming February? Now United is following suit, saying it will stop flying from Washington Dulles to Dubai after January 25. United blamed the entry of “subsidized carriers such as Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways into the Washington D.C. market,” but it also cited a decision by the U.S. government to shift its contract for Washington-Dubai flights to JetBlue, which has a code-share partnership with Emirates. (Earlier, United said it would discontinue its service from Dulles to Kuwait and Bahrain after January 13.)

Now that British Airways and Ireland’s Aer Lingus are sister companies under the umbrella of parent IAG, they have embarked on a big code-share expansion for their U.S. routes. According to Airlineroute,net, Aer Lingus’ code is going onto BA’s London Heathrow routes from 19 U.S. gateways, as well as its Gatwick service from New York JFK, Las Vegas and Orlando; and BA’s code goes onto Aer Lingus flights to Dublin from San Francisco, Orlando, Washington Dulles, JFK, Newark, Hartford and Boston, as well as Shannon flights from JFK and Boston.

China Eastern, a member of Delta’s SkyTeam alliance, plans to boost service on its Shanghai Pudong-Chicago O’Hare route — which starts March 18 — from three flights a week to daily. The airline will use a 777-300ER on the route.

Southwest Airlines plans to add a new international route from Los Angeles International in April, subject to government approval. The carrier said it will offer daily flights from LAX’s Terminal 2 to Liberia/Guanacaste, Costa Rica, the gateway to that country’s coastal resort area.

United is taking the gloves off in a fight for SFO-Denver travelers. (Image: Jim Glab)

Ever since deregulation freed up carriers to set their own routes and frequencies without government approval, the legacy airlines have used a tried and true tactic when a new entrant started flying in their key markets: Flood the market with extra capacity in an effort to drive the newcomer out.

So it should be no surprise that United will resort to that strategy in the face of new competition from Virgin America between United’s hubs at Denver and San Francisco.

Virgin recently announced plans to start flying SFO-DEN on March 15, 2016, with three daily roundtrips. And now United has responded with a planned boost in frequency on the same route starting March 3. In January and February, United’s schedule shows eight or nine flights a day in the market, but in March it will boost that up to 14 flights a day on weekdays, according to Airlineroute.net. It will reportedly use a mix of 737-800s, A320s and 757s on the route. Flight time between the two cities is about 2.5 hours.

Airways News notes that when Virgin jumps into the market, there will be four airlines flying between Denver and San Francisco/Oakland with around 25 flights a day — a huge jump in capacity thanks to the extra eight daily frequencies from United and Virgin.

Can you say fare war? How about some spring skiing?

The other competitors are Southwest, which flies to both Oakland and SFO from Denver; and Frontier, although that ultra-low-cost carrier is reportedly planning to drop its Denver-San Francisco flights in April.

If United plans to wait out Virgin America in a battle for DEN-SFO, it might have a long wait. United tried the same strategy two years ago when Virgin started service between another pair of United hubs — San Francisco and Newark. United doubled its frequencies and fares fell by 30 percent. But Virgin is still operating three non-stops a day in that market, which was a United monopoly route before Virgin came along. Alaska Airlines also tried the same tactic — without success — when Virgin entered the Seattle market from Los Angeles and San Francisco several years ago.

With United still struggling to overcome a poor service reputation among frequent flyers that dates back to its merger with Continental, some road warriors might be glad to have another option on the SFO-Denver route (other than one-class Southwest).

“As is the case in EWR and other markets, we believe that our superior, consistent and tech-forward product and service will resonate with travelers in the Denver area,” a Virgin spokesman tells TravelSkills. “We will be the only airline with three cabins of service on every flight between SFO and DEN, and guests will also have WiFi, personal touch-screen entertainment, and on-demand food and drink every time they fly on us.”

Is Delta creating a mini-hub at Mineta San Jose (pictured)? (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

In domestic route news, Alaska is growing at Orange County Airport; Delta starts a non-hub route in the West; Spirit Airlines adds a new city to its network; Southwest eyes new service at Minneapolis/St. Paul; and American will add a Memphis route.

Delta doesn’t often schedule new service on non-hub routes, especially in the domestic market, but that’s what it will do on December 30 when it adds Las Vegas-San Jose flights to its schedule. Delta Connection partner Compass Airlines will fly the route three times a day with 76-passenger E175s. San Jose-Las Vegas is currently a monopoly route for Southwest, which offers multiple daily fights. In addition to this new flight, Delta also operates nonstop flights between SJC and Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis St. Paul, Salt Lake and Seattle. Starting to sound like a mini-hub to us!

Alaska Airlines plans to boost its presence at California’s Orange County Airport next year with a pair of new routes. Effective March 16, Alaska will start once-a-day service from Orange County to Santa Rosa/Sonoma County, California and to Reno/Tahoe, Nevada. The flights will be operated by Horizon Air with 76-seat Q400 turboprops. Meanwhile, Alaska this month started flying four new previously announced routes. Daily Portland-Austin flights are operated for Alaska by SkyWest with a 76-seat Embraer 175; the other three routes — Eugene-San Jose, Los Angeels-Monterey and Boise-Reno — are flown by Horizon Air with 76-seat Q400s.

Low-cost Spirit Airlines will add Seattle-Tacoma International to its route map next year, making it the first new U.S. airline to start flying there in eight years. The carrier plans to start flying twice a day between SEA and Los Angeles in March, followed by twice-daily SEA-Las Vegas flights in April. Spirit Airlines commenced two daily non-stop flights between Oakland International Airport (OAK) and LAX this week, and has a name for the new route: the “Bay-to-Basin” corridor.

American Airlines will add new non-stop service on March 3 between Phoenix Sky Harbor and Memphis, a route that currently has no non-stop service. The daily American flight will be operated by Mesa Airlines under the American Eagle banner.

In domestic route news, Southwest unveils 10 new domestic markets it will enter next spring; Virgin American adds a new route out of Dallas Love Field; Alaska begins a west coast route next week, and American Airlines begins new service from LaGuardia.

Southwest Airlines said it plans to start flying 10 new domestic routes on April 12, 2016. From Chicago Midway, it will add flights to Dayton, Ohio; Flint, Mich. and Grand Rapids, Mich. New routes from St. Louis will include Des Moines, Iowa; Wichita, Kans. and Pittsburgh (starts March 10). Southwest will also begin flying from NewarkLiberty International to Las Vegas and Orlando, and will switch its St. Louis-Seattle service to year-round instead of seasonal.

Southwest also has some previously announced new routes starting on November 1, including daily flights between Oakland-Atlanta, Austin-Boston, Austin-Seattle, Denver-Cleveland, LaGuardia-Indianapolis and Washington Reagan National-Orlando. New international routes starting November 1 include daily flights from Denver to Puerto Vallarta and Houston Hobby to Liberia, Costa Rica and Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Virgin America Airlines has set a December 1 launch for new service between Dallas Love Field and Las Vegas — a route thoroughly dominated by Southwest. Virgin said it will offer two daily roundtrips on the route. One of the flights will be a red-eye leaving Las Vegas at 1:30 a.m. and arriving in Dallas at 6:10 a.m.

November 5 is the starting date for new Alaska Airlines service linking Los Angeles International with Monterey, Calif. — a route that American dropped last month. United also flies the route. Alaska will serve the route with a Horizon Air 76-seat Bombardier Q400 turboprop.

Also on November 5, American Airlines is set to begin new service from New York LaGuardia to a pair of domestic destinations: Akron, Ohio and Memphis, Tenn. On the same date, American will start flying from Charlotte, N.C. to Springfield, Mo.

Southwest Airlines next week will cut the ribbon not only on a new international concourse at Houston Hobby, but also on the next phase of its international growth plan — a deep dive into Latin America and the Caribbean.

For most of its existence, Southwest deliberately flew only domestic routes, but that changed with its acquisition of AirTran. Southwest has been picking up AirTran’s transborder routes and making plans for expansion, in large part with a new international wing of its Houston Hobby terminal that will open October 15.

On that date, Southwest will inaugurate a number of new routes from Hobby, including Cancun, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and San Jose del Cabo in Mexico; Belize City, Belize; and San Jose, Costa Rica. On November 1, it will add flights from HOU to Liberia/Guanacaste, Costa Rica and Montego Bay, Jamaica.

By the end of this year, according to a report in Bloomberg News, Southwest will be flying to 12 destinations in eight Latin American and Caribbean countries — no doubt with more to come, since the airline has reportedly identified 50 cities outside the U.S. that its 737-800s can reach. Southwest is also building another international terminal at Ft.Lauderdale, due for completion in 2017.

Other U.S. carriers also have their eyes on Latin American expansion. Just in the past few days, JetBlue launched new service to Mexico City from Ft. Lauderdale and from Orlando, and said it will begin flying from Ft. Lauderdale to Quito, Ecuador in February 2016. And American announced plans for a new route from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Merida, Mexico next March. (On the other hand, United recently suspended its nine-month-old Denver-Panama City, Panama flights, although it might revive them on a limited basis.)

All this activity by big, well-capitalized U.S. airlines must be causing some concerns for Latin American carriers that have their own plans for growth in the U.S. market, like Panama’s Copa, which recently launched a new route to San Francisco.

Do you plan to fly Southwest to Latin America or the Caribbean? Why or why not? Please leave your comments below.

Minneapolis-St. Paul’s new Escape Lounge will be open to all passengers who pay a fee. (Image: Metropolitan Airports Commission)

Travelers departing Los Angeles International could see passenger drop-off delays due to new construction; members of Virgin Atlantic’s Elevate program are offered free UIber rides at Dallas Love Field; a new passenger lounge will soon come to Minneapolis-St. Paul; and the first portion of Southwest’s new terminal at Houston Hobby opens.

Officials at Los Angeles International are warning travelers to expect nighttime traffic delays for passenger drop-offs along the departures level roadway of the LAX Central Terminal Area. A construction project to overhaul those roads, including the laying of new concrete, will begin Monday night, September 14, and continue until sometime before Thanksgiving. Monday through Thursdays, the work will begin at 11 p.m. and should finish up by 5 a.m. (but you never know)., and Friday and Saturday nights it will start at 11 p.m. and continue to 1 p.m. the next day. The roadway will always offer access to the terminal, but lane closures should be expected, LAX officials said.

Members of Virgin America’s Elevate loyalty program who buy a Virgin flight originating at Dallas Love Field are being offered free Uber rides (up to $20) for a trip to or from that airport. It’s good for flight bookings made through October 12 “while supplies last,” Virgin said. If the customer is a first-time Uber rider, he’ll get an additional discount of up to $20.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International is expected to cut the ribbon on a new passenger lounge sometime in the next few months. The new Escape Lounge will be open to all travelers for an as-yet-undetermined fee, although it is expected to be around $30. Located on the mezzanine level of Terminal 1, the 5,000-square-foot Escape Lounge will offer free Wi-Fi, free food and beverages, and reading materials.

The white portion of the terminal represents Southwest’s new international facility at Houston Hobby. (Image: Hobby Airport)

At Houston Hobby, the first phase of the new Southwest Airlines international terminal and concourse has opened, and the entire facility should be operating by October 15 — the same day that Southwest starts flying from HOU to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Mexico City, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; and San Jose, Costa Rica. Elements of the first stage are a new Southwest ticketing area and self-service kiosks; and Southwest check-in counters. The whole complex, known as the West Concourse, will also include a new federal inspection station and gate area. The first phase of a new West Concourse parking garage is expected to open in November.

Atlanta will get new service to Washington D.C., Ft. Myers and Boston. (Image: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International)

In domestic route news, Southwest Airlines is adding a pair of destinations from Washington D.C., United will start a key business route from San Francisco, Spirit expands at Atlanta and Los Angeles, American will deploy A321s on more Hawaii routes and will provide 787 sampler flights between two hubs this fall, and JetBlue adds a transcontinental winter route.

Southwest Airlines will shift its Washington D.C. schedules around this winter. On March 9, the airline is due to launch new twice-daily flights between Atlanta and Washington Dulles, as well as one daily roundtrip between Omaha and Washington Reagan National. At the same time, Southwest will drop its existing Chicago Midway-Washington Dulles service, and will cut back San Diego-Washington Dulles to seasonal service only.

Bay Area companies that do business with Walmart and Sam’s Club will get a new non-stop option this fall. United Airlines is planning to begin new service starting October 25 from San Francisco to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, the gateway for Walmart’s Bentonville, Ark. headquarters. United will use a CRJ700 for the 3.5 hour (yeesh!) flight.

So, what do you think of Spirit Airlines flamboyant new livery? (Photo: Spirit)

Low-cost Spirit Airlines will expand its growing presence at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson next month, and will add a new west coast route this fall. On September 10, Spirit is due to kick off new daily service from Atlanta to Boston and to Ft. Myers, Fla.; and on November 12 it will add Los Angeles-Oakland flights.

More new planes from American: The carrier is taking delivery of Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners, and according to airlinerouite.net, it will deploy one of them on a key domestic route for a couple of weeks this fall. AA is due to fly the 787 between Los Angeles and Dallas/Ft. Worth from November 5 through November 22. Meanwhile, after putting Airbus A321s into service this month from Los Angeles to Honolulu, American is due to add the planes to other Hawaii routes this fall — specifically, Los Angeles-Kona starting September 9, LAX-Maui beginning October 5, and LAX- Kauai as of November 5.

JetBlue is smacking Virgin America (again) with new seasonal service this winter between its New York JFK base and Palm Springs, California, operating the route five days a week (not Tuesdays or Wednesdays) from January 14 through May 1.

And then there was one: Southwest is standing by its free checked bag policy. (Photo: Felipe Garcia / Flickr)

Every once in a while, reporters or Wall Street analysts will ask Southwest Airlines officials if they plan to keep their policy of allowing two free checked bags in the face of an industry-wide trend toward more and more fees. That happened again at a business travel conference in Florida this week.

The question is especially relevant now in view of JetBlue’s recent changeover to a new fare structure that no longer allows a free checked bag for all passengers, leaving Southwest as the industry’s sole remaining outlier on the issue… and in view of Wall Street’s unrelenting pressure on Southwest to pile on the fees like everybody else in order to strengthen its bottom line.

But Southwest’s answer was the same as before: Chief Executive Gary Kelly said there are no plans to charge for checked luggage. Southwest has long maintained that while its two-free-bags policy (and its no-change-fee policy) deprives it of considerable fee revenues, that is more than made up for by the added customers it brings in.

And in view of the airline’s financial performance, it’s hard to argue the point. Southwest last week reported that its $691 million net income in the second quarter was an all-time record — and its ninth consecutive quarter of record profits.

Southwest said that its passenger load factor also hit a new record for the quarter, at 84.6 percent. While its major competitors continue to keep a lid on capacity expansion, Southwest said its second quarter capacity grew by seven percent year-over-year.

The airline’s most dramatic growth is coming at Dallas Love Field thanks to the end of Wright Amendment restrictions there, which allowed Southwest to add a number of new longer-haul routes. And it is growing at Houston Hobby as well, where its focus is on international routes; it plans to add eight of them there this year.

Readers: Do you think Southwest should stick with its two-free-bags policy, or throw in the towel?

If you hate flying from San Francisco into busy, congested LAX, Southwest will start offering a new option next winter: The carrier said that on January 6, it will start flying three daily roundtrips between San Francisco and Burbank, with fares as low as $49 one-way.

In other domestic route news:

Other new routes from Southwest starting January 6 include daily flights between Sacramento-Boise, Indianapolis-Chicago Midway and St. Louis -Little Rock. This week, Southwest kicked off new daily service out of Austin Bergstrom to California’s Orange County Airport, St. Louis, and Portland.

In another intra-California market, Alaska Airlines on November 5 will begin daily roundtrips between LAX and Monterey. On the same date, it will introduce daily Boise-Reno flights; and in mid-December, it will start twice-weekly seasonal service between LAX and Gunnison, Colorado, the gateway for the Crested Butte ski resort. And this week, Alaska launched new daily flights between Seattle-Milwaukee, Seattle-Oklahoma City and Portland-St. Louis.

United plans to begin twice-daily service on October 25 between Newark and Akron-Canton, preserving New York service for the Ohio airport. (Southwest, which currently flies between Akron-LaGuardia, plans to drop it around the same time.)

The fight for gate space at Love Field continues in the courts. (Image: SWABlogGuy/Flickr)

Southwest Airlines has agreed to let Delta keep operating its five daily flights between Atlanta and Dallas Love Field, eliminating a July 6 deadline for Delta to drop the service and get out of that airport.

The reprieve for Delta will remain in effect indefinitely while the airlines and the airport “pursue a long-term resolution in the courts,” Delta said.

Delta has been using gate space leased by Southwest, which controls 18 of the 20 gates at Love. Virgin America holds the other two.

Southwest, claiming it needs all 18 gates to accommodate its planned schedule expansion at Love Field, had told Delta it would have to give up the space on July 6, but the U.S. Transportation Department intervened, telling the City of Dallas — which owns Love Field — that it would have to find some way to accommodate Delta’s service.

The city has filed suit, asking the federal courts to sort everything out and tell it what it must do.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Delta wants to add even more service at Love in mid-August, including two more daily flights to Atlanta and two a day to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit and Salt Lake City; and American hopes to begin four flights a day there as well, although the destinations are unknown.

Things are coming to a head in Delta’s battle to keep its presence at Dallas Love Field, where its five daily flights to Atlanta are facing a July 6 deadline.

That’s the date when a temporary pact between Delta and Southwest ends; it provides that Delta can use Southwest gate space until that date, but after that, Southwest wants Delta out.

The Transportation Department has intervened in the dispute, and this week it sent a letter to Dallas city officials reiterating its insistence that city-owned Love Field find a way to accommodate Delta’s service. Southwest leases 18 of the airport’s 20 gates; Virgin America holds the other two.

The letter from the Transportation Department suggested that if Dallas didn’t find a way to provide space for Delta at reasonable rates, it could be disqualified from receiving federal government grants.

Southwest Airlines responded with a statement saying it disagrees with DOT’s guidance on the use of Love Field gates “by non-tenant airlines like Delta. That guidance not only violates Southwest’s legal and contractual rights but would also reduce competition, costing consumers millions of dollars in higher airfares,” Southwest said.

The airline noted that it has already scheduled and started selling tickets on additional flights out of Love that will keep all of its 18 gates busy after August 9 with “an industry-leading gate utilization of 10 flights a day per gate.”

The City of Dallas this week filed a suit in federal court, asking a judge to intervene and specify what the city must do before the July 6 deadline. Stay tuned.

TravelSkills reader E.B. contacted us last week about an email he received from Gogo. It said that his unlimited inflight wi-fi subscription would increase a hefty 50%– from $40 per month to a painful $60 starting in July.

We contacted Gogo, and a spokesperson confirmed that the price increase was announced last year, and is just now going into effect for existing members who had signed up on the old rate.

Gogo’s current online prices.

Is having unlimited Gogo worth $60 a month? Or does that price point push you out of the market?

Gogo has been doing much experimentation with pricing over the last year, and its current strategy seems to be to raise prices to the point where fewer people actually use the system. We’ve seen the price of day passes bought onboard rise to a whopping $50, which definitely discourages casual use on the plane.

With fewer users draining bandwidth, the service performs better– right? Have you noticed more reliable connection speeds? I have to say that we’ve definitely noticed fewer complaints about Gogo in recent months, so maybe the strategy is working?

For some power users with a nice expense account, $60 per month might still be worth it. But for me, the most economical strategy is to always have a few day passes pre-purchased online in my account and ready to use when I need them. Day passes bought online are just $16 each– still a bargain!

Gogo’s prices when purchased onboard. Do you follow Chris on Twitter? @cjmcginnis CLICK!

My strategy: Don’t buy Gogo on the plane. I was surprised to see the price for a Gogo wi-fi day pass on a Delta transcon flight at a whopping $50 recently– the highest I’ve ever seen it. I’m very glad I took the minute or two while waiting in line to board to buy a day pass in advance on Gogo’s website for just $16, saving $34. If you are a inflight wi-fi freak like me, buy your passes ahead of time. It’s quick and easy– buy one or more passes online before the flight, save them to your account, and when you sign on from the plane, access your pass and you are on. For $16 instead of $50. Buy Gogo passes here.

The Alaska-Delta rivalry at Seattle is generating lots of new passengers. (Image: Jim Glab)

Just as Delta has been adding a number of new routes at Seattle-Tacoma in a tit-for-tat rivalry with its erstwhile “partner” Alaska Airlines, it has adopted the same tactic following Southwest Airlines’ announcement that it will begin service this fall from Oakland to Delta’s Atlanta hub.

Less than two weeks after Southwest said it will launch daily Oakland-Atlanta flights on November 1 comes word that Delta will start flying the same route effective October 1. Delta already serves the Oakland-Los Angeles and Oakland-Salt Lake City markets.

By the way, Southwest tells us that when its new Oakland-Atlanta route starts, it will discontinue its existing service between San Francisco International and Atlanta.

Meanwhile, ultra-low-cost Spirit Airlines is growing at Oakland as well, with plans to launch twice-daily OAK-Los Angeles service November 12. Spirit already flies from Oakland to Las Vegas, Chicago and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Getting back to Seattle, Delta just announced four new routes from Sea-Tac, including daily service to Boston starting next April; daily flights to Orlando beginning December 19; three daily roundtrips to Pasco, Wash., as of November 1; and three a day to Victoria, B.C. starting April 4, 2016. In addition, Delta said on August 1 it will increase its Seattle-Bozeman/Yellowstone, Mont,. service from once a week to once a day.

The ongoing rivalry between Alaska and Delta is giving Seattle-area residents dozens of new air travel options as they pile on new routes. In fact, passenger traffic at Sea-Tac is expected to reach 42 million this year, a gain of 8 million from 2014 levels, making it one of the nation’s fastest-growing airports.

Oakland Airport is getting more new service from Southwest, including Atlanta. (Image: Oakland Airport)

The latest route announcements from Southwest Airlines, starting this fall, include new service between Oakland and Atlanta; new flights at Austin and Orange County, Calif.; more presence in Latin America, and more. But Ohio’s Akron-Canton Airport will lose some key routes.

November 1 is the launch date for Southwest’s Oakland-Atlanta service, its 24th non-stop destination from the California airport. The carrier started flying from Oakland to Baltimore/Washington and Dallas Love Field earlier this year, and is due to begin Oakland-Nashville and Oakland-New Orleans flights on June 7, followed by Oakland-Columbus service August 9.

At Akron-Canton, Southwest’s schedule as of November 2 will eliminate service to Boston, LaGuardia, Washington Reagan National and Denver. The Denver-non-stop will be moved from Akron to Cleveland Hopkins Airport.

Southwest also unveiled plans to add a number of destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean from Houston’s Hobby Airport later this year. On October 15, it will start twice-daily Houston-Cancun flights and daily service from HOU to Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos in Mexico; Belize City, Belize; and San Jose, Costa Rica. On November 1, Southwest will add daily service from Houston to Montego Bay, Jamaica and to Liberia, Costa Rica.

Is the traditional airline loyalty reward chart — showing fixed mileage costs for various award trips — becoming a thing of the past? Industry observers are predicting that other airlines are likely to follow the lead of Southwest and Delta in changing over to “dynamic pricing” for award trips — i.e., varying the miles or points required based on supply and demand, just as they do with air fares.

It’s just one more blow to the traditional structure of airline mileage programs that the hapless traveler will have to adjust to, as burgeoning load factors give airlines increasing confidence to do pretty much whatever they want with program rules. It’s also helped along by the fact that reward travel requests have been increasing in recent years as capacity remains tight.

The trend to dynamic pricing for award seats is perhaps a natural outgrowth of frequent flyer programs’ ongoing shift from distance-based to spending-based earning models, now in place at Southwest, Delta and United, and perhaps coming to American as well.

Bloomberg News, in an analysis of the trend, predicts that United will begin dynamic pricing for MileagePlus award travel in the second quarter of this year, although the airline wouldn’t confirm it.

Bloomberg also noted that Southwest Airlines, which sets a fixed exchange rate between Rapid Rewards points per dollar of air fare (which is set dynamically and thus varies by award flight) last month boosted that rate from 70 to 80 points per dollar.

The quandary for passengers was perhaps best symbolized by Delta’s decision last year to remove its award chart from the SkyMiles website, so the cost of a reward trip was completely unknown until the traveler researched travel dates and routes.

Given that uncertainty, it’s all the more reason to keep your reward travel plans flexible in the future. And to keep burning your miles as fast as you earn them, since they continually lose value over time.

Air France’s swank new first class suite arrives in the US. See below for details (Photo: Air France)

Southwest sets next round of Love expansion. Southwest Airlines last week revealed details of a big schedule expansion at Dallas Love Field, with plans to add non-stop service to 10 cities starting April 8. New destinations to be served from DAL include Charleston (S.C.), Columbus, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukee, Panama City Beach, Portland (Ore.), Sacramento, San Jose and Seattle/Tacoma. (Charleston service will start April 11 and will operate only on Saturdays; Panama City Beach flights will begin with once-a-week service, increasing to daily May 8, but will be seasonal.) Also on April 8, Southwest will boost frequencies on routes from DAL to Ft. Lauderdale, Oakland and Santa Ana/Orange County. The airline will also add other new service at Santa Ana/Orange County June 28, including non-stops Chicago Midway, Seattle and Austin.

Southwest woos Atlanta flyers. Pulling out its biggest marketing guns to date, Southwest Airlines this week launched a new promotion in the Atlanta market only, offering Rapid Rewards members a pass good for free companion travel through the end of the year. To get it, members must register online at www.southwest.com/atlanta and complete at least three roundtrips out of Atlanta from now through May 17. The only other way to get coveted companion pass status on Southwest is to amass 110,000 Rapid Rewards points. This is quite a remarkable deal, especially if you are the type of traveler who likes to mix business with pleasure and bring along the spouse or significant other from time too time. T&Cs state that you must be an Atlanta resident living in one of these zip codes to get the deal. Delta loyalists….will you bite?

Talk about being in the right place at the right time! A rare Etihad sighting along with Air Force One at SFO. (Photo credit: Touch n Go Aviation Photography)

Etihad jet at SFO? We did a double-take when we saw the image of this Etihad jet at SFO floating by on Twitter this week. We thought maybe our post Etihad vs Jetihad had forced positive change 🙂 In the end, we learned from an airport spokesperson that Etihad substituted one of its own aircraft for the normal Jet Airways 777 on the route due to “operational issues.” It’s nice to see that beautiful bird at SFO…and even nicer to see it on the same day that President Obama was in town— see his 747 in the background? What a shot!

Delta said to tighten award rules. First, Delta angered SkyMiles members by taking down the awards chart from its website. And now — according to the Crankyflier blog– the airline has taken another step backwards with its loyalty program by quietly introducing new advance-purchase rules for low-level domestic award travel. Cranky says that SkyMiles now requires members to book those award trips at least three weeks in advance, but it didn’t bother to announce the change. And SkyMilers now have to go through the award booking process online before they can find the true mileage cost of a trip. (So…about that offer from Southwest mentioned above…)

Air France brings new luxury to JFK flights. The first U.S. flights to introduce Air France’s new La Premiere first class suites are AF 010/011 between New York JFK and Paris CDG. The 32-square-foot suites have a seat that transforms into a bed that’s six and a half feet long and 30 inches wide, along with a 24-inch table and an ottoman that can serve as a guest seat. And four (count em!) windows– see top.

SFO Centurion Lounge loses chef. Michelin-starred chef Christopher Kostow (from Meadowoods in Napa) only lasted three months in a gig where he oversaw the kitchen at American Express’s popular new Centurion Lounge at SFO’s Terminal 3. According to EaterSF, which broke this news, “Kostow declined to comment on the reason for the severed ties, but some industry types assume that the differing desires of a Michelin-starred chef and an airport food service provider have something to do with it.” Too bad because the spread Kostow prepared for the opening night was deeelicious, and TravelSkills was there with a full report!

The DOT’s official announcement regarding the United ticketing scam

Smart traveler or fraudster? The TravelSkills post (Should United pay for its mistakes) this week about the folks who snapped up supercheap fares by misrepresenting themselves received a TON of great comments. Check em out here. In a related story….remember the Skiplagged site, where a college kid exposed the longstanding practice of “hidden city ticketing” – a similar practice of the traveler misrepresenting where he or she is actually flying in order to get a cheaper fare? Both United and Orbitz filed a lawsuit against the kid, and this week, Orbitz reached a settlement, but United’s case is still active. Full story from USA Today

Alaska adding preferred seats. The next carrier to add a paid preferred seating option will be Alaska Airlines, which will reportedly start selling extra-legroom bulkhead and exit row seats sometime later this year. The airline is said to be eyeing preferred seating fees ranging from $15 to $50 depending on the length of the flight. Buyers will also get a free drink and priority boarding.

JetBlue will take Apple Pay. JetBlue Airways said its flight attendants will soon start accepting Apple Pay for in-flight purchases of food and beverage items, extra-legroom seats and other amenities. The new Apple Pay technology is offered with Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6s models. The carrier plans to give iPad minis and NFC-enabled cases to flight attendants so they can handle the Apple Pay transactions. The devices will also have a new iOS app that provides flight data and other information, and will let flight attendants “easily identify TrueBlue and Mosaic loyalty members by name,” JetBlue said.

Icelandair offers “aurora” flights. For passengers who don’t get to see the real aurora borealis, Icelandair is trying to offer the next best thing. It has painted the exterior of one of its 757s in a Northern Lights simulation, and even brought the same feeling to the cabin interior with a special mood lighting display. The plane is on a varied international schedule. Watch this gorgeous plane take shape in this excellent VIDEO

Last week a travel blogger for Forbes asked me to comment on what I feel are the two best U.S. airlines for business travelers.

You’ll find a snippet of what I told him here. But I thought my full answer would make for a good TravelSkills post.

So here’s what I wrote about my two current faves (which I’m sure will change over time):

I’m originally from Atlanta and have flown Delta extensively for the last 25 years (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Over the last 5-10 years, Delta has worked really hard to be the best US airline for business travelers and I think that it has succeeded. It finally has a world class terminal in New York City at JFK…. that old Worldport was something that was really holding Delta back from being world class.

It has upgraded and standardized Sky Clubs. Nearly all Delta jets have wi-fi– something near and dear to most business travelers and being able to count on having it on your flight (instead of wishing or wondering) is key. (Related: Delta’s progress on international fleet wi-fi)

Plus, it’s pretty easy to get into Economy Comfort with miles or dollars, which makes the economy flying experience better.

And even though everyone is groaning about new spend requirements for elite status, I think it’s going to make the experience better for frequent business travelers in the long run.

I’m one of the lucky travelers living in a Virgin America hub. Love those US flag winglets! (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Those business travelers lucky enough to be based in a city with service from Virgin America should take advantage of the carrier’s stellar inflight product and outstanding service. It has nice new planes, decent legroom, good inflight entertainment, 100% wi-fi, all of which is now Gogo’s faster ATG-4 variety.

Something about flying Virgin America makes you feel good– not worn out or abused like you might feel on other carriers. Its terminal facilities at SFO, JFK and Dallas Love are state of the art– really nice, bright, modern, etc.

The problem is that most business travelers are hesitant to fly Virgin because they don’t want to give up on earning their legacy airline frequent flyer program miles, and they don’t see Virgin’s Elevate program as overly generous.

Another drawback is lack of frequency between some key city pairs (hello SFO-ORD currently 1x per day!) but that could be fixed with a slew of new planes coming over the next few years bought with IPO money.

I spread my airline business around quite a lot, so even though I have favorites, I don’t get to fly them all the time.

For example, I was super impressed on a recent JetBlue Mint flight to New York (Trip Report coming soon), and would love to fly JetBlue more if it had more Bay Area flights. (It would likely be one of my favorites if I lived in NYC.)

United is the largest airline at my hometown airport (SFO) and I fly it a lot but my experiences, and those of many of my readers, have been uneven. Over the last year, I must say that my positive experiences have tipped in United’s favor, and I’m a fan of its lie-flat international business class product- especially upstairs on a 747. I’m also a fan of its new terminal at SFO.

I’m excited to see what American/US Airways are doing, but I barely fly them at all. I used to fly AirTran quite a lot when it was cheap and easy to upgrade to their business class seats. But now that upgrades are no longer possible on Southwest, I’ve shied away from the carrier, especially on long haul flights.

Everyone has an opinion about which U.S. airline is best. What’s yours? Why? Please leave your comments below.

What was the nail in the coffin? Too many flyers so busy looking at their personal electronic devices that they had no time to browse through SkyMall’s eclectic and eccentric product offerings.

A SkyMall “Ice chute” for your blender (Photo: SkyMall)

Also, more travelers were likely getting used to browsing through shopping sites like Amazon or others via planes equipped with inflight wi-fi. For example, Gogo periodically allows travelers to browse sites such as Amazon for free. Over the holidays, it allowed bored passengers free online access to over 30 retailers.

In the Wall Street Journal story that broke this morning, SkyMall chief executive Scott Wiley cited a “crowded, rapidly evolving and intensely competitive” retail environment as the reason for the quarterly publication’s recent struggles. “With the increased use of electronic devices on planes, fewer people browsed the SkyMall in-flight catalog,” he said.

Who is left holding the (shopping) bag? Sounds like the airlines. In court papers, SkyMall named Delta, American and US Airways as its largest unsecured creditors. Assets are between $1 million and $10 million and total liabilities are about $12 million.

When Delta and Southwest ended their contract with SkyMall last fall, the handwriting seemed on the wall for the company.

Perhaps someone will buy the brand and somehow turn it around. It certainly seems to have a place in the national psyche…that’s worth something!

Delta’s big(ger) Seattle plans. Last week Delta’s CEO told employees the company wants to expand from its current 11 gates to 30 gates at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, making it “a huge international gateway.” With those gates, Delta could operate up to 240 flights a day. Delta has been steadily adding transpacific and domestic flights at SEA, to the dismay of its erstwhile partner Alaska Airlines, which is following its own growth plan at its hub airport. Alaska currently controls about 40 percent of SEA’s traffic. Meanwhile, Delta announced another round of expansion at SEA next May and June, adding Delta Connection service to Denver (five flights a day), Sacramento (four a day) and Boise (four a day), plus seasonal service to Ketchikan and Sitka, Alaska.

Even with the cuts, JetBlue has a chart showing that its standard legroom will still beat other carriers. (Image: JetBlue)

JetBlue overhauls fares, seating. Only two major U.S. airlines let all passengers check a bag for free — JetBlue and Southwest (Southwest allows two free bags) — but that will fall to just one in the first half of 2015. That’s when JetBlue will revamp its pricing into three “branded fare bundle options.” The lowest fares will be for “customers who do not plan to check a bag,” JetBlue said; the others will include one and two checked bags respectively, plus other perks. The airline also will “refresh” its A320s by installing “lighter, more comfortable seats” that will let it increase the number of seats per plane — and reduce its current (very generous) standard seat pitch, although it will still exceed pitch on major competitors according to the chart above (supplied by JetBlue). The airline pledged that its Wi-Fi will still be offered for free (at least through 2015). Meanwhile, a JetBlue exec said in an interview the airline is likely to expand its Mint premium seating product to transcon flights from Boston in the future.

Within days of JetBlue’s announcement, wily Southwest Airlines launched a retro-hipster, captivating new TV ad campaign focusing on its free checked bag option. This 30-second spot, called “Swagger” is worth a watch and listen! See below.

Delta places big widebody order. In a blow to Boeing, Delta said it will turn to Airbus for the next big phase of its fleet renewal program, placing an order for 50 twin-engine widebody jets to replace its aging 747s and 767s. The company has ordered 25 of Airbus’ next-generation A350-900s, to be delivered starting in 2017; and 25 A330-900neo aircraft, to arrive starting in 2019. The A350s will be used on transpacific routes, and the A330s will go onto medium-haul transatlantic routes and some west coast-to-Asia routes. Earlier this year, TravelSkills got an inside look at the A350, which claims to be the widest of widebodies. Check out our report and PHOTOS of the new A350.

Cheaper upgrades. Delta is offering winter travelers the opportunity to upgrade at a discount for flights now through February. A nice way to avoid some holiday travel hassles, yes, but (as usual) there are some important points in the fine print: The markets NYC to/from LAX / SFO / SEA will be excluded from this offer. This promotion does not include any fares purchased in Delta’s cheapest E, V, or Y class.

Popular: Did you hear about the latest wave of downgrades at United MileagePlus? Read this!

Watch those Wi-Fi charges. When you sign up for in-flight Wi-Fi, do you keep a close watch on how much data your device is eating up? One transpacific traveler found himself unexpectedly facing a bill for almost $1,200 from Singapore Airlines, and web site Skift examined just what went wrong for him– providing an object lesson for others. (P.S. Sounds like the guy’s not getting his money back…)

KLM’s new economy seat (Image KLM)

KLM overhauls 777-200s. Delta’s SkyTeam partner KLM has started renovating the passenger cabins of its 777-200 fleet, following up on a similar overhaul of its 747s. The new World Business Class is getting fully-flat seats with more personal space for passengers and new 16-inch seatback monitors with upgraded entertainment options. In the 777-200 economy class, new seats will provide extra legroom, ergonomic headrests, power outlets and a new entertainment system with hundreds of programming options.

Route news: Alaska, JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit. Alaska Airlines said it will introduce daily Seattle-Washington Dulles service on March 11 … JetBlue last week started daily non-stops between Salt Lake City and Orlando … Spirit Airlines has big expansion plans at Houston Bush Intercontinental, where it will add 10 new routes next spring, including Tampa, Baltimore/Washington and Oakland as well as three points in Mexico and four in Central America … Frontier Airlines told employees that it plans to slash 15 flights a day at its Denver home base next year due to rising taxes and fees at that airport.

Bottled cocktails on VX. A new cucumber vodka mojito from Austin Cocktails, a line of bottled, craft cocktails, is now available fleetwide onboard Virgin America. The new pre-mixed drink is made with vodka, natural flavors and sweetened with organic agave and priced at $8.25. Culturemap Austin says this about the Mojito: “For anyone watching her girlish figure, what may be most noteworthy is that all the drinks ring in at less than 100 calories a serving….and has a refreshing, lime-heavy flavor that gets better with subsequent sips. With its hint of cucumber, it reminds us of the cucumber-infused water you get at a spa.”

STAY TUNED! Part 2 of Catching Up on the week’s most important travel news comes tomorrow!

All ebola, all the time. The relentless saturation news coverage of ebola may not bother veteran road warriors, but it is having an impact on the general public. In a new Reuters-Ipsos survey, almost half of the 1,577 respondents said they plan to avoid international air travel. Meanwhile, Frontier Airlines keeps re-cleaning that plane — now out of service — that an ebola victim flew on a week ago, and tracking down some 800 passengers who were on that flight or subsequent ones on that aircraft. The Centers for Disease Control issued guidelines to airlines about dealing with sick passengers and cleaning planes. And other parties are taking their own steps, from the Air Canada flight attendants who said they will start wearing plastic gloves in-flight to individual travelers who are donning everything from face masks to homemade hazmat suits. This in spite of the fact that experts say catching ebola on an aircraft is extremely unlikely.

ATL-California first class fares to soar? Southwest told TravelSkills that the final two-class AirTran flight departs SFO as a redeye to Atlanta on Nov 1, 2014. After that it’s all Southwest-all-the-time with its one class of service for the four-hour flight. With only United and Delta offering first class seats on the route, you can bet those front-of-the-plane fares are going to swell. We’ll keep an eye on it. Right now, you can buy a first class, round trip seat on AirTran, Delta or on SFO-ATL or LAX-ATL for about $1,000-$1,200 round trip. Let’s see how long that lasts post-AirTran. Peering into January, Delta’s first class fares on ATL-SFO are already at about $1,500.

Please join the 80,000+ people who read TravelSkills every month! Sign up here for one email-per-day updates!

A Southwest B737 outfitted in a State of California flag livery. (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

AirTran/Southwest loyalty merger due soon. You don’t hear much about AirTran any more since Southwest has been relentlessly absorbing the routes of its subsidiary into its own system, but a significant date in the merge is coming up soon. On November 2, the two airlines’ frequent flyer programs — Rapid Rewards and A+ Rewards — will be fully combined. Here’s a handy guide to the things members should know about protecting all their program assets. A Southwest spokesperson told TravelSkills that the AirTran brand will be completely gone by December 28th– by that date all operations will be under the Southwest name and not a single AirTran liveried plane will remain in service.

Southwest says ‘We’re sorry.’ In an unusually frank letter to its best customers, Southwest Airlines has admitted it hasn’t been doing so well with on-time performance lately, and pledged to take steps that will improve the situation — from making sure its first flights of the day leave on schedule to lengthening turnaround times. TravelSkills reader DL received the note and sent us this comment via email: Today I got a letter from Southwest’s “Senior Vice President, Customers.” It was a form letter that described Southwest’s recent troubles with on-time performance, which have stung me for much of 2014 and caused me to consider using other airlines when booking important flights. (I would say that half of my Southwest flights in 2014 were delayed by more than 30 minutes, sometimes by as much as 3 hours.) The letter explained that Southwest was spacing out the time between flights to boost its on-time performance. One wonders whether these new airfare deals [posted earlier this week] are designed to lure back customers who had drifted away. Regardless, I still like the airline and fly them a lot.”

Stay tuned…More important airline news coming TOMORROW in our second installment of Catching up on Travel News with TravelSkills!

CARS

The Sidecar app

Ride-finding service wins SFO approval. While larger competitors Uber and Lyft still await an official nod to start operating at San Francisco International Airport, a smaller firm called Sidecar already has one, and will start airport rides within 30 days. Sidecar will pick up and drop off passengers in the departures area, and its drivers will use the cell phone lot to wait for requests. The firm agreed to pay the airport a per-ride fee similar to the ones regular taxis pay. Interesting: Sidecar drivers set their own prices for each ride and will inform you of the total price BEFORE the ride. Currently, Sidecar operates in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, Charlotte NC, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Have you used Sidecar? Would you use it if it were cheaper than Uber? Please leave your comments below.

Flightcar in Seattle. Meanwhile, Flightcar (see our recent post: How to park free at the airport) — which lets business travelers rent out their cars to others while they’re away — has started operating at Seattle-Tacoma International; it already does business at SFO, ATL and BOS.

Please join the 80,000+ people who read TravelSkills every month! Sign up here for one email-per-day updates!

Will Turkish Airlines land in Atlanta any time soon? (Photo: Turkish Airlines)

AIRLINES

Big day approaches in Big D. In two weeks — on October 13 — the Wright Amendment expires, opening up Dallas’ close-in Love Field to a new era of long-haul domestic routes, and the major players are getting ready. Virgin America teamed up with ride-finding service Uber and with HotelTonight to offer discounts and digital promotions at a special website, www.ShareTheLoveDallas.com. Southwest has scheduled a series of concerts and a golf tournament, and will give away prizes in-flight to passengers during the first week of service. Southwest set up a website detailing its new DAL routes at www.nonstoplove.com.

Turkish Airlines eyes ATL service. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Turkish Airlines CEO Temel Kotil said the fast-growing carrier plans to start flying from Istanbul to Atlanta, although he gave no date for the service. The airline already announced it will begin San Francisco flights next April. Kotil said the carrier also plans to add more frequencies to Chicago, Washington Dulles and LAX. Turkish is part of the Star Alliance, and its other U.S. routes include New York, Boston and Houston. Turkish giving the fast growing Gulf carriers like Emirates or Etihad a run for their money competing for passengers headed to the Middle East, India and Africa. A new carrier in ATL might help the airport retain its title as “world’s busiest,” which this NPR story says might be in jeopardy.

Big smiles at Delta. If you notice that your Delta flight attendants or gate agents have a bit more spring in their step in coming months, it could be because Delta is giving all employees a nice 5% profit-sharing payout for 2014 and has promised a 3-4% payout next year. Forbes reports: “Delta will report record profitability in 2014, while its stock is a top twenty S&P 500 performer and its operational reliability and customer satisfaction are at the top of the industry.” In similar news, United Airlines announced Monday that it will offer its thousands of flight attendants an early and voluntary buyout option, a lump-sum payout worth up to $100,000. Time reports that United would not disclose the criteria needed to earn the maximum buyout but is hoping at least 2,100 employees take advantage of the offer.

Frontier Airlines is expanding from its Denver stomping grounds with new nonstops in SFO & PHX. (Phot0: Jim Glab)

Frontier grows at SFO, PHX. Frontier Airlines — whose strategy as a new ultra-low-cost carrier (along the lines of Spirit Air) is to nibble at the edges of major business markets — plans to start flying from San Francisco International to Houston Bush Intercontinental and Phoenix November 20. Technically, the service will break up United’s SFO-IAH monopoly and could impact its high fares, but it’s hardly a big threat since Frontier plans one flight a day vs. United’s 10 — and since Frontier levies some heavy fees, like a carry-on bag charge for low-fare passengers. SFO-Phoenix is dominated by Southwest and American/US Airways, with dozens of daily flights vs. Frontier’s planned single departure. Also on November 20, Frontier will add once-a-day flights between PHX-Houston and PHX-Salt Lake City.

People Express suspends service. After a big kick off last summer, Virginia-based People Express is already hitting hard times. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the carrier suspended service suddenly last week. But it said that it might crank up again by Oct 16 according to a press release. Hmm.

Cost of a disrupted trip: $1,475. The most common “travel mishap,” according to a new survey of 500 business travelers, is a flight disrupted by a delay, cancellation or missed connection (like those entangled in the Chicago air traffic shutdown on Friday) — and the average cost to the traveler caught up in the problem is $1,475 in missed work and out-of-pocket expenses, according to the Global Business Travel Association. If the mishap occurs overseas, the average cost jumps to $2,148. When a mishap causes the traveler to miss work, the average time lost is 2.3 days. What was your worst ‘travel mishap’ and how did it impact your schedule?

AA plans DFW-Beijing flights. American Airlines wants to add Beijing as the newest transpacific spoke from its Dallas/Ft. Worth hub. The carrier last week filed for government approval to begin daily 777-200ER flights from DFW to Beijing’s Capital International Airport sometime next summer. AA already flies from DFW to Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo, and it serves Beijing from Chicago O’Hare.

Wi-Fi progress at JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic. JetBlue has only installed its super-speed Fly-Fi Internet service on 70 planes thus far — and is adding a dozen aircraft a month — but it said more than a million devices have already connected to the free Ka-band satellite service. “On JetBlue we see 40 percent of customers logged on, while other airlines get single-digits only,” a JetBlue official said. Fly-Fi claims data speeds of 12 to 20 Mbps …. Wi-Fi provider Gogo said Virgin Atlantic has signed on to become the first European carrier to install its satellite-based 2Ku Wi-Fi service fleetwide, offering “unprecedented bandwidth.”

Lower fares at ATL thanks to Spirit. Ultra low-fare carrier Spirit Air’s entry into the Atlanta-Detroit market has resulted in lower fares on not just Spirit, but on Delta and Southwest, which had significantly jacked up fares over the last two years, according to the Detroit Free Press. In related news, when United announced a big downsizing of its Cleveland operation several months back, Frontier started beefing up its presence there, and now Spirit Airlines is doing the same. Spirit will begin new CLE service in mid-January to Orlando, Tampa and Ft. Myers; on February 5 to Ft. Lauderdale, DFW and Las Vegas; and April 16 to Los Angeles and Myrtle Beach.

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Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at LAX. In airport news this week, Virgin Atlantic will build its own Clubhouse for Upper Class passengers at Los Angeles International. No details yet, but it will occupy 4,000 square feet and open next spring. Currently, the airline’s premium flyers use Virgin America’s and Air New Zealand’s LAX lounges …Los Angeles International has installed 40 of those new automated passport control kiosks for arriving passengers in the Tom Bradley International Terminal, and Delta opened up 10 of the devices in Terminal 5 .

Uber, Lyft, Sidecar back in hot water. Ride sharing companies are facing a new round of legal threats from city officials in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Seems like a never ending story… and thankfully, Uber and others seem to just ignore the threats and continue hauling business travelers around town and to the airport. In a related note, Uber has reportedly reinstated it’s flat $65 fare between San Francisco and SFO. TravelSkills riders in Pacific Heights had complained loudly about airport trips costing $95 or more… apparently Uber heard the squawks and fares are back down. Have you noticed?

Southwest grows at DEN.Denver International cut the ribbon on a five-gate expansion of Terminal C, allowing Southwest Airlines to expand…pushing Frontier into other cities and keeping United on its toes.

Free wi-fi at Houston airports. Houston started rolling out free Wi-Fi at its airports; it’s now available in all terminal areas at Hobby, and in Terminals A and D at Bush Intercontinental; it should be in all IAH spaces by year’s end …

Speeding up at Ft Lauderdale Flight delays at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International should ease up considerably following the opening last week of a new 8,000-foot runway there.

NYC property closes; new Ritz-Carlton in Florida. The InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel in Midtown Manhattan has closed its doors for a much needed, 18-month, $175 million renovation. (The Barclay is located alongside another NYC grand dame that needs the same type of loving restoration…which hotel are wer referring to?? Leave your guesses and comments below!) In other hotel news: Florida’s One Bal Harbour Resort north of Miami Beach will become The Ritz-Carlton Bal Harbour, Miami effective October 2 … A former Sheraton a mile from Washington’s Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., is now the Westin Crystal City.

Free inflight texting & voicemail. Starting September 17, T-Mobile customers can get free in-flight texting and voicemail service on all 2,000 U.S. aircraft equipped with Gogo Inflight Internet Wi-Fi. “To access the free messaging and voicemail services, T-Mobile customers will need to have their Wi-Fi Calling-enabled phone in airplane mode and connected to Gogo Wi-Fi. From there, they simply launch their browser, verify they’re a T-Mobile customer, and follow the instructions,” Gogo told TravelSkills. (Interesting side: Gogo’s stock jumped 10% after this new deal became public last week.) If you don’t already use T-Mobile, does this make you want to switch? Leave your comments below.

Click to see TVOne news report on Air New Zealand’s final 747 flight from SFO

End of an era at Air New Zealand. The latest airline to mothball its last 747 is Air New Zealand, which has flown the Boeing jumbos for 33 years. Its final 747-400 left San Francisco for Auckland last week, then was taken out of service. The carrier now uses 777s and 787s on transpacific routes. Meanwhile, Air New Zealand will add a third daily roundtrip to its LAX-Auckland route three days a week from April through October 2015.

Southwest boosts on-time record. Has Southwest Airlines figured out how to overcome its recent problems with late flights? The airline’s August performance showed a big improvement in on-time operations, up 10 percentage points from July when it (and JetBlue) were stuck at the very bottom of the the DOT’s on-time performance rankings.

Lufthansa’s new premium economy seat on display at the Global Business Travel Association convention in August (Chris McGinnis)

Lufthansa details premium economy service. Star Alliance member Lufthansa will debut its long-promised premium economy section in a few months, and it has posted a new website with details of what the service will provide to passengers and its planned schedule of deployment on international routes. It will be introduced starting in December on 747-8s from FRA to ORD, LAX and IAD; by late April on A380s to IAH, JFK, MIA and SFO; and in May 2015 on A340-600s to LAX, EWR and SFO.

Airline Wi-Fi searches. If you’re flying on United and you’d like to know in advance whether or not your aircraft is Wi-Fi equipped, you can look it up on this United website. Passengers on Southwest can do the same thing with the carrier’s online Wi-Fi Finder. United & Southwest have taken the proactive step of notifying passengers on the day before their flight if the plane has wi-fi. (Whether or not the wi-fi is operational is another question ….)

Virgin America enhances front cabin menus. First class flyers on Virgin America will see a slate of new menu options this fall from celebrity chefs like Hiro Sone, Staffan Terje, Chris Beerman and Elizabeth Binder. New entrees include things like a grilled mushroom medley, soy ginger marinated salmon salad, roasted chicken with artichokes, ginger pepper noodles, and Marrakesh chicken salad. NOTE: If you fly Virgin America into San Francisco before Dec 14, bring your boarding pass to the Humphry Slocombe ice cream store in the Ferry Building marketplace for a free scoop! (It’s also served onboard flights departing SFO.)

Texas all-you-can-fly air service plans autumn start. A Texas entrepreneur plans to launch a new small-plane air service this fall with an all-you-can-fly policy for flat-fee memberships, according to the Dallas Business Journal. Called Rise, its eight-passenger Beechcraft King Air 350 turboprops will initially concentrate on the busy Dallas-Houston market with high-frequency service. Memberships will cost $1,650 to $2,650 a month, and Rise will use its own terminal at Love Field. The former CEO of California’s Surf Air — which has a similar business model — is executive chairman of Rise.

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AIRPORTS

Mock up of what the new dining terrace at LAX Terminal 2 will look like

LAX shows plans for T2 overhaul. The Westfield Group, in partnership with Los Angeles World Airports, has created a video showcasing its plans for bringing 20 new retail and dining concessionaires to LAX’s Terminal 2. The revamped T2 will have a dozen dining outlets — twice as many as it has now — and will feature outlets of several local restaurants. The project, now underway, should be finished next year. (Currently, T2 primarily serves international carriers.) Terminal 2 is home to ten domestic and international airlines, including Aeroméxico, Air Canada, Hawaiian Air and Virgin Atlantic.

Wi-Fi Update: Sites monitor airports, hotels. The folks at Cheapflights.com have compiled a handy guide to Wi-Fi at 25 major U.S. airports, including how to access it, whether it’s free or paid. Meanwhile, hotelwifitest.com — which lets users see the data speeds typically achieved at major hotels — enhanced its service so the results can be viewed directly by users of major hotel booking sites. “After a one-click install, the extension will automatically display the WiFi information block whenever you open a hotel page on Hotels.com, Expedia, Booking.com, or TripAdvisor,” the company told us.

SECURITY

TSA: Most travelers now use expedited lanes. Remember the early days of TSA’s PreCheck program when you were whisked through expedited screening while everyone else lingered in long lines? Those days are gone: TSA now sends more than half of all travelers through the expedited checks — not just PreCheck members, but various categories of low-risk flyers and persons selected randomly from regular lines. This is reportedly reducing wait times for all passengers — but early adopters of PreCheck certainly don’t feel so special any more.

CARS

Volkswagen’s sporty new GTI now in the National fleet (Photo: VW)

New cars at National. Members of National’s Emerald Club will have access starting this fall to new 2015 models in the company’s Emerald Aisle locations nationwide, including the Volkswagen GTI, Chrysler 200, Dodge Challenger, Jeep Cherokee, Mazda6, Mustang and Lincoln MKC. Some locations will also offer new Mazda MX-5 Miatas and Hyundai Velosters.

HOTELS

Marriott innovation: Healthy food from a machine. Hotel vending machines typically dispense candy bars and high-sodium snacks. But the Chicago Marriott O’Hare is trying out a new option: Fresh, healthy food from a vending machine. Priced from $3 to $12, options include things like the Detox Salad (kale, quinoa, fruits and beans); low-fat Greek yogurt with berries; and chicken breast from antibiotic-free, humanely raised birds.

BYO device entertainment systems finally working on more United flights (Photo: United)

AIRLINES

United expands in-flight streaming. Passengers on most United Airlines A319s and A320s can now (finally) stream entertainment in-flight. A United official said at an industry conference in Las Vegas that the airline recently activated in-flight entertainment streaming on almost three-fourths of its 152 Airbus narrow-bodies, with the rest coming soon. In-flight streaming — which is already available on UA’s 23 747-400s and all 777-200s to Hawaii — was dependent on completing the installation of in-flight Wi-Fi equipment, he noted. (Have you tried it yet? How did it work?)

ATL flyers short-changed by merger? Southwest’s acquisition of AirTran could prove to be more costly than beneficial for Atlanta-area flyers, according to an analysis by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The paper said that when the government approved the combination, it didn’t foresee Southwest’s drawdown of service at ATL, giving more of the market to an already-dominant Delta. The report said Southwest/AirTran has already cut competition on more than a dozen routes out of ATL, and that Delta’s market share there has grown from 78 to 83 percent.

Ryanair rolls out business fares. Business travelers have never been too fond of Ryanair, the intra-European airline known for ultra-low fares and its broad range of ancillary passenger fees. But now the carrier has come out with a new category of business fares. They’re significantly higher than base fares, but include a menu of services that would otherwise incur hefty fees, like a checked bag, priority boarding, access to premium seats, and, perhaps most significant: a waiver of change fees.

Print your bag tag at home, insert it into special bag tag sleeve at airport, and bypass long luggage check in lines. (Photo: Hawaiian Air)

Hawaiian tries out self-checked luggage. The latest carrier to start testing a procedure for passengers to check their own bags is Hawaiian Airlines. For two months, travelers on its flights from Seattle and Oakland to four Hawaiian destinations can use the TAG@HOME option, which lets them print out bag tags at home when they check in for flights. At the airport, they’ll find a stand with reusable sleeves; tags are slipped into them and attached to the luggage, which is taken to a bag drop. Alaska Airlines offers a similar option for home printing called Self-Tag Express, and United has started offering a self-tagged bag procedure at Chicago O’Hare, but with tags printed at the airport.

Earlier boarding for uber elite? This just in from TravelSkills reader EJ: “When the Delta gate agent called for first class boarding on a recent flight to New York, she invited Diamond Medallion members to board the flight with first class passengers. The agent then waited two minutes before inviting other Sky Priority passengers — Platinum, Gold — to board. As a Diamond flyer with Delta, the invite to board with first class passengers was a pleasant surprise. I’ve had issues with Delta over the years, but Delta deserves kudos in this case. Delta seems to me upping its game on multiple fronts.” Has anyone else received special treatment like this?

Hawaiian, Frontier add routes. Members of American’s AAdvantage program in the San Francisco area are getting a new option for award travel to Maui. AAdvantage partner Hawaiian Airlines said it plans to begin four weekly flights between SFO-Maui on November 20, increasing to daily December 17, using a 294-seat A330-200. Meanwhile, Frontier announced new service starting in late October from Cincinnati to DFW, Orlando, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Ft Lauderdale; from Chicago O’Hare to Phoenix and Salt Lake City and from DFW to Memphis.

Secret spaces on new jets: TravelSkills in London’s Daily Mail. Last week, London’s popular Daily Mail website post on a story we brought you two years ago: An inside look at airline crew rest areas. The Mail story included several images as well as our 8 Best Beds videowe created in 2012 when invited on a Cathay Pacific B777 delivery flight from the Boeing factory in Seattle to Hong Kong. The post was hugely popular… as a matter of fact, view on our video jumped from around 90,000 to over 240,000 in just a few days.

SECURITY

TSA PreCheck hits a milestone. TSA said last week its PreCheck program, now about nine months old, has passed the half-million mark in approved members. What’s more, Customs and Border Protection now has more than 3 million members in its own trusted traveler programs, which include Global Entry for international airport arrivals. TSA said PreCheck is currently available at 118 U.S. airports, while Global Entry can be used at 51 U.S. airports and at preclearance stations in Canada. TSA has opened more than 300 PreCheck application centers nationwide.

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HOTELS

Fees on hotel guests hit a new record. A new study by NYU’s Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management finds U.S. hotels are on track to haul in a record $2.25 billion in fees and surcharges from guests in 2014 — up from $1.7 billion just four years ago. “Fees and surcharges are highly profitable; most have incremental profitability of 80 to 90 percent or more of the amounts collected,” the study noted. Hotel charges include things like resort fees, early departure fees, Internet fees, room service surcharges and business center fees, among others. Have you been seeing new hotel fees lately? Which ones irritate you the most?

In Case You Missed It…

>Check out this amusing video about the controversial “Knee Defender” incident on United last week.

The art deco Marine Air Terminal at New York LaGuardia (Photo: Matt Green / Flickr)

AIRLINES

Delta upgrades LGA-BOS Shuttle. On November 2, Delta will move its New York LaGuardia-Boston Logan Delta Shuttle from LGA’s remote (and cooly art-deco) Marine Air Terminal to Terminal C, and will upgrade its aircraft to 110-passenger Boeing 717s. (Those 717s used to belong to AirTran.) Delta Shuttle’s LGA-Washington and LGA-Chicago flights will remain at the Marine Air Terminal and continue using Delta Connection/Shuttle America E-175s. Besides the larger planes (with three classes of seating, configured 2-3 in the back + wi-fi + power outlets), LGA-BOS Shuttle passengers will enjoy easier connections and a wider array of terminal services. (Any comments on the improvements Delta has made at LGA lately?)

Virgin expands DAL schedule. Virgin America beefed up is flight skeds from Dallas Love Field (DAL) not long after Southwest said it, too plans to start DAL-SFO/OAK flights. These higher daily frequencies are designed to make Virgin more appealing to business travelers. Virgin’s initial schedule at DAL starts in October, with three flights a day to SFO, LAX and DCA, and four to LGA. Now Virgin says it will add a fourth daily roundtrip to SFO, LAX and DCA starting April 29. (Unconfirmed reports suggest Virgin might end its SFO-Ft. Lauderdale route to free up aircraft for DAL; Virgin is also suspending SFO-PHL and LAX-PHL October 6.) It will also continue its twice-daily SFO-Austin service.

Legacy carriers cut routes… Delta and United are both eliminating some key business routes from their networks. At Memphis — once a Northwest hub — Delta plans to end service next month to Denver and to Austin, although it will add two more daily flights to its ATL hub. Meanwhile, United is due to end its daily non-stop Pittsburgh-Los Angelesflight on August 18, and its two daily Chicago O’Hare-Topeka flights on September 2, leaving that Kansas airport without scheduled passenger service.

…While low-cost airlines add them. Southwest Airlines last week kicked off six daily roundtrips between Chicago Midway and Washington Reagan National, plus three a day between DCA-Nashville and two from DCA to New Orleans. Southwest will add Cleveland-Phoenix service November 2, and just took over more Mexico routes from rapidly disappearing subsidiary AirTran … Spirit Airlines has started service from Kansas City to ORD, DFW, DTW, LAS and IAH, and announced new daily service linking Detroit-ATL and Detroit-New Orleans starting in November, as well as new once-daily service between ORD-ATL, ORD-MSY and ORD-BWI … Frontier said it will begin service on 10 new routes from northern cities to sun destinations this winter.

An alert sent to TravelSkills by Alaska Airlines this week

Reminder: At SFO, all Alaska Airlines flights will move to the International Terminal, Boarding Area A, effective Wednesday, August 20. Details regarding lounge access for Board Room members are still up in the air, however. Stay tuned.

INTERNATIONAL

A fond farewell to Cathay’s Queen of the Skies (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Cathay Pacific bids farewell to the B747. On August 31, the Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-400 will make its final departure from SFO, marking Cathay’s retirement of the graceful “Queen of the Skies” from long haul service. At a bittersweet farewell event at San Francisco International this week, Cathay’s Americas head Tom Owen said that Cathy is shedding itself of the B747 in “one of the fastest fleet replacements in history.” Why so fast? Owen said that while the company credits the 747 as the tool that made it a truly global carrier in the 1990s, “it was designed in an era when a barrel of oil cost $15-$20.” With oil currently hovering around the $100/bbl mark, Cathay is moving to the Boeing 777-300ER and the soon-to-be-released Airbus A350 (both of which are 25% more efficient than the 747) for its long haul flights. Cathay’s remaining 747s will be deployed on intra-Asia routes for the next two years, and will then disappear.

New biz classes at Aer Lingus, Finnair. Aer Lingus has detailed its plans for a (much needed) revamped business class to debut in 2015, with fully-flat seats, free Wi-Fi, 16-inch hi-def touchscreens and Irish cuisine. Meanwhile, Finnair has unveiled the interior designs for its long-haul fleet of Airbus’ new A350 XWB (extra wide body) aircraft, which the Finnish carrier will start flying in 2015. The 297-seat A350s will have a 46-seat 1-2-1 business class with flat-bed seats, 16-inch touchscreens, Wi-Fi and more. (TravelSkills contributor Ramsey Qubein recently flew to Helsinki for a first hand look at the first A350– stay tuned for his review later this week!)

Did you see our post on How to Deal With Americans? This is one of those cases where reader feedback is even better than the post! 🙂 Check it out here.

DFW gets a rail link. August 18 marks the opening of the DFW Airport Station, the terminus for a five-mile extension of Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s light rail. The station, part of DFW’s Terminal A, is opening four months ahead of schedule. The new Orange Line extension runs from the airport to Belt Line Station, with continuing service to Irving-Las Colinas, Dallas Market Center and downtown Dallas. It will make DFW the third-largest U.S. airport with a direct rail link to the city center.

HOTELS

The striking new Park Hyatt: A posh new perch in NYC (Photo: Hyatt)

NYC Park Hyatt opens next week. An August 19 debut is slated for Hyatt’s new flagship property, the Park Hyatt New York, across from Carnegie Hall on West 57th Street. The posh property takes up the first 25 floors of a 90-story glass tower that reshapes the Midtown skyline; the floors above contain ultra-expensive condos. The Park Hyatt has 210 extra-large rooms (standard rooms average around 500 square feet), including lots of suite options; rates start at $700-$800 a night.

Rebranded Chicago-area hotels. There’s lots of hotel rebranding in and around Chicago this month. Downtown, the former Crowne Plaza at 160 E. Huron was remade into a dual-branded Hilton — the Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites by Hilton Chicago Magnificent Mile … The former InterContinental Chicago O’Hare Hotel, a 556-room property across from the Donald Stephens Convention Center in suburban Rosemont, has been acquired by Loews Hotels and converted to the Loews brand … In the western suburb of Oak Brook, the former Renaissance has been converted by Starwood into Le Meridien Chicago-Oak Brook Center after a $25 million renovation; and the former Oak Brook Hills Resort & Conference Center is now the Hilton Chicago/Oak Brook Hills.

By now we all know this summer is toast when it comes to airfare deals. That means bargain hunters have had to wait around for any honest-to-goodness bargains.

Those deals arrived today.

This morning Southwest Airlines and AirTran kicked off a big three-day fare sale for late summer (and fall) trips starting Monday, August 25 and running through Wednesday, December 17 that other airlines are sure to match. (UPDATE: So far, we’ve seen matching sale fare pages posted from JetBlue, Virgin America , Delta, United, American )

To get the deals, you must book now through Thursday, June 5 at midnight in your time zone.

These deals are great for late summer…and pretty good for the slower fall season. You can bet your sweet bippy that those late summer fares will be snapped up in just the first few hours of this sale, so act fast.

Or, if you get stuck and can’t find a sale seat, check competing airlines that might be slow to match the sale, and have not sold out.

Examples:

$100 round-trip between Chicago and Memphis or Baltimore and Boston; San Francisco and Las Vegas

$200 round-trip between Atlanta and New York or Ft Lauderdale; Seattle and San Diego or Austin and Denver; Oakland to Denver or Phoenix

$260 round-trip between Washington DC and Houston Hobby

$300 round-trip between Atlanta or Chicago and Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco

There are restrictions: Sale fares are not available on Fridays or Sundays, the busiest days of the week for flying. Blackout dates are September 1 (Labor Day) and November 21-December 2 (Thanksgiving).

If you are planning to fly to/from Nevada or Florida, here’s a weird rule in Southwest’s fine print: “Travel to Florida or Nevada is valid Sunday through Wednesday only. Additionally, travel from Florida or Nevada valid Tuesday through Friday only. Travel between Nevada and Florida is valid on Tuesdays and Wednesdays only.”

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